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This movie, I believe will set the all time record for box-office take.

No way. I hope it does well, but it's not going to top Titanic, or Lord of the Rings or even those American Pie movies, IMO.

While I agree there is a double standard in the reception of Gibson's film as opposed to Scorsese's, remember that it's been a rather long time now since The Last Temptation of Christ was released. Also, I don't think the basic temptation premise was all that objectionable in Scorsese's film (since Christ does reject the temptation and dies on the cross). It was the other stuff, like Jesus making and carrying crosses for the Romans, and saying stuff like "I'm the prince of blasphemy", etc that was annoying to me. However, the crucifixion was quite well done, particularly the Via Dolorosa (in the style of a Hyeronomous Bosch painting with spooky music in the background).

Two things bother me about the Gibson film. 1.) The language thing. I see no point in the gimmicky use of languages. 2.) The point of the story. Will the movie relate Christ's death to salvation, or will it merely be a document as to the brutality of crucifixion as a form of punishment?

I will be seeing it in ay case.

Given the number of screens this is going to be on it will definitely be a top 10 (which means beating American Pie) grossling film, probably top 5 (which means beating any single installment of LOTR), and could be #1. There's HUGE prospective audience for this movie, by some counts theres around 150 million Christians in this country if half of them see the movie once (no multi-viewings, no non-Christians in attendance) it'll tie Titanic. If only a third go (same conditions) it's wedge inbetween ET and Star Wars for the number 3 spot.

I don't think the language thing is gimicky at all. The movie is in the same languages the Bible was originally written in, I wouldn't have a problem with somebody doing the Iliad in Latin (actually I think it would be cool), any fan of opera knows you've got a lot more things telling a story than the words and there's nothing wrong with telling the story in a language the audience doesn't know. I'd rather it wasn't subtitled actually, subtitles draw the eye and brain away from the images rhythm and inflection which are really the part that tells a story.

From what I've seen the message of the movie very much is "this is what Christ went through for your salvation".

The 2001 study, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), by Barry A. Kosmin, Egon Mayer, and Ariela Keysar at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, indicates that 76% of Americans identify themselves as "Christian."

The current population is around 285,000,000, indicating approximately 216,000,000 Christian-Americans.

At an average of $8.00 a ticket, if 25% of the Christians see the movie once that comes to roughly $433,000,000.

My guess is this movie will go into the mega-blockbuster category.