Mel Gibson Film '5th Largest Opening in History'

Newsmax ^ | 2-26-04 | Carl Limbacher

[truthandlife]

In the face of a vicious and sustained campaign attacking both Mel Gibson and his film "The Passion of the Christ" the opening day box office receipts Wednesday soared to $23.5 million with an additional $3 million take in advance screenings held Monday and Tuesday.

The film opened on 4,600 screens in 3,006 theaters on Wednesday.

According to the New York Times which has been in an attack mode against Gibson and his film since he first began filming the Passion, it was the fifth largest opening in Hollywood history with "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," hanging on to first place with opening day receipts of $34.4 million.

Industry experts told the Times that the box-office figure was astonishing for an extremely violent, R-rated, religious film in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles.

"This number would be impressive for a mainstream blockbuster, let alone a subtitled historical-religious epic," Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks ticket sales told the Times. "This shows the power of public discourse with regard to religious topics and the effect a full-blown media blitz can have on the public."

Bob Berney, president of Newmarket Films, which is distributing the picture, told the Times he expected the number of theaters to increase slightly next week because of the intense interest. The film is already moving to more screens on Friday, for a total of 4,793 in 3,043 theaters.

"The success of the film so far is incredible, and it's across the board," Berney told the Times adding that theaters were packed not just in Bible Belt cities like Houston and Oklahoma City, but also at the AMC theater on 42nd Street in Manhattan and the soaring ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood. The Times reported that some producers and studio executives said the film would probably take in $75 million by the close of the weekend and, if attendance continued to hold up, could take in as much as $100 million in the first five days.

"My feeling is these people will go back more than once," Mr. Berney said. "And with this kind of number, people who are not part of churches will go just out of feeling that they've got to see it, a curiosity. I don't know how long it will go," he added "but there will be enough repeat business to sustain it for quite a while."

[longtermmemmory]

This means only the first four movies will ever be listed.

[nutmeg]

Interesting comparison in #17, commish. Thanks!

[miltonim]

the box-office figure was astonishing for an extremely violent, R-rated, religious film in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles. ... and where everyone already knows the ending!

[Aquinasfan]

"My feeling is these people will go back more than once," Mr. Berney said. "And with this kind of number, people who are not part of churches will go just out of feeling that they've got to see it, a curiosity. I don't know how long it will go," he added "but there will be enough repeat business to sustain it for quite a while."

People will go back not just out of curiousity, but because of great word of mouth. I'm telling EVERYBODY to see this movie! This movie is going to have legs. There's no telling how high the box office will go. This movie bears repeated viewings. I saw the movie by myself on Ash Wednesday, but hope to see it with my wife again soon.

[nutmeg]

Check out post #17

[Aquinasfan]

This film is going to break Titanic's box-office record.

From your lips to God's ear.

[The Mayor]

"Hey Bill, Guess What? We're all talking about Jesus! Isn't it wonderful!"

Great tagline!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Heeheeheehee... Wait until the weekend.

[sharkhawk]

Paging Roger Friedman, Paging Roger Friedman....

Boy, he sure has been hard to find since the numbers came out.
I knew this would be a huge hit when I talked to my 75 year old, former nun, aunt who said she was going to see this movie with 4 of her friends. She probably hasn't been to a movie theater in 30 years.

[truthandlife]

Have you ever thought that this was God's plan all along?

God gave a famous actor a yearning to seek him again and brought a vision of a movie of the Resurection of Jesus Christ. Mel Gibson faithfully went along with this vision and made the film the way God gave it to him. God gave Mel the resources ($$$), gave him the idea, gave him every graphic detail. He went ahead and made the film and made it in Aramaic (a dead language). The Hollywood elite were laughing at Mel and said he had gone nuts. He was making a religious movie about Jesus Christ in a dead language with subtitles. He was also using $25 million of his own money. The Hollywood left was laughing and could not wait for it to fail. First, Gibson couldn't find a distributor because Satan had started to put up many roadblocks. The first roadblock was that the movie was so called, "anti-semitic." The ADL comes out and tries to torpoedo the movie. As this happens, it creates great buzz. Gibson decides to distribute the movie himself (as an act of faith) because none of the big distributors would touch this movie. Gibson goes to the evangelical Christian community to get their opinion about the movie and starts showing the movie to over 20,000 evangelicals. This kind of marketing is unheard of. What is Gibson doing? ("With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26).

Satan tries to torpoedo the movie again with leftist anti-Christian movie critics saying this movie has too much gore, blood and is just awful for children. This even creates more buzz and people become even more curious.
Now the movie is finally out and many people get to see who Jesus is ("The Savior of the World") and gets to see to the ultimate in sacrificial love. It is not pretty to see but it shows how much God truly loves us.

If I was Gibson, I would be pretty giddy myself because he took a true faithful walk with God and it was quite an unorthodoxed walk but look where it got him. Gibson was able to produce the biggest grossing Christian movie of all times as well as sharing what Jesus did for us on the Cross. True sacrificial love.

"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"

John 15:13

[rwfromkansas]

interesting

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET


In the Valley of Death that was the IA DRANG Valley of 1965 I was an in-person witness to the Heroism of many.

While carrying our dead and wounded from helicopters fresh from Landing Zone X-Ray to other helicopters at my Landing Zone Falcon that were bound for Pleiku Hospital I saw, heard and smelt so much.


See our U.S. 7th Cavalry's Petition for BUSH to award llifetime lifesaving Hero RICK RESCORLA the Presidential Medal of Freedom at:


http://www.lzxray.com


also See:


'RONNIE GUYER PHOTO COLLECTION'

http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_collection.htm
(IA DRANG-1965 Photos, 3-Sets


NEVER FORGET

[rwfromkansas]

That verse is actually in the film...

Mel did not do it for the money.

[rwfromkansas]

Any link to a moderator saying that? It might be interesting to include in an article I am writing for journalism class to show the online buzz.

[rwfromkansas]

Is it coming out again on Good Friday (I do know that Icon paid some theaters special additional funding to have it run through Easter)?

[rwfromkansas]

I have not seen a movie in the theater in years (well, I did see Cheaper by the Dozen with my family on Christmas Day, but before that it has to have been at least 4 years since I have been in a theater), and I am a college student...a group that is supposed to go to the movies all the time.

This movie is bringing lots of people that have not seen movies in ages.

[RamingtonStall]

The movie was not just a marketing ploy it was beautiful. After suffering through countless numbers of Hollywierd movies there was nothing I have ever seen to compare with this. Mel Gibson is truly courageous...

Ditto!

I agree with your assessment.

My wife and I went to see the movie tonight in Columbus. WONDERFUL!

RamS

[walden]

"And Mel Gibson is almost giddy each time I see him on tv, promoting this. What is wrong with him? "

Have you ever done a MAJOR project, and reached the drop-dead date, when it's show-time? I have-- used to lead project teams building systems, and by the time you go live on a big one, you're usually running purely on caffeine and adreneline-- haven't had a real night's sleep in weeks. Mel has that look about him these days. Give him a week, a chance to crash and sleep for a day or two and he'll be fine.

[commish]

Any link to a moderator saying that? It might be interesting to include in an article I am writing for journalism class to show the online buzz.

This is the thread

First Admin comment : "Due to the overwhelming interest, we thought one official review thread would be much better than hundreds of individual threads."

Also this Comment at Post#54 : "You're probably right under normal conditions, but, the interest generated for this movie is tremendous, and that interest justified the breaking news designation. Just do a search to see the shear number of threads. I can not recall in my 6 years here this many threads on one subject, not even the Impeachment of Clinton."

Would love to see the paper when it is done.

[ex-Texan]

*Great Film Bump*!