'Passion' Moves Beyond $250 Million Mark

Yizuman

Link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040314/ap_on_en_mo/box_office

Edit: Kept showing not found, pasting it instead.....

'Passion' Moves Beyond $250 Million Mark

Sun Mar 14, 5:45 PM ET

By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer

LOS ANGELES - "The Passion of the Christ" was the top film for a third straight weekend, taking in $31.7 million and pushing its total beyond a quarter of a billion dollars.

Mel Gibson ( news )'s dramatization of Christ's final hours climbed to $264 million in the United States and Canada after 19 days in theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday.

With solid receipts expected through Easter on April 11, "The Passion" is on track to gross between $350 million and $400 million, said Rob Schwartz, head of distribution for Newmarket Films, which handled the release.

That would put it on par with "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," which took in another $2.05 million over the weekend to push its total to $371.2 million.

Johnny Depp ( news )'s psychological horror tale "Secret Window," based on a Stephen King story about an author accused of plagiarism by a stalker, debuted in second place with $19 million.

The weekend's other two big releases had so-so openings. Frankie Muniz ( news )'s spy caper "Agent Cody Banks: Destination London" was No. 5 with $8 million, barely half the $14.1 million opening weekend of "Agent Cody Banks" last year.

Premiering in narrower release, David Mamet ( news )'s military thriller "Spartan," starring Val Kilmer ( news ), finished in 10th place with $2 million.

"The Passion" lifted Hollywood to its third-straight uptick in revenues after a long slump in January and February. The top 12 movies grossed $104.1 million, up 15 percent from the same weekend last year.

Before "The Passion" opened, Hollywood revenue was running 7 percent behind last year's. Revenues now are 3 to 4 percent ahead of 2003's, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

"'The Passion' has single-handedly made what was turning out to be a pretty lousy year into a really good year so far," Dergarabedian said.

Playing in 3,221 theaters, "The Passion" averaged $9,830 a cinema, a huge number for a movie in its third weekend. "Secret Window" averaged $6,296 in 3,018 theaters, "Agent Cody Banks" did $2,691 in 2,973 cinemas and "Spartan" averaged $2,440 in 832 locations.

Starring Jim Caviezel ( news ) as Christ, "The Passion" continues to draw well among church groups that helped make it a religious blockbuster, but the film is packing in much broader audiences, said Newmarket's Schwartz.

"It's a large cross-section of America," Schwartz said. "It's not just church groups going at this point. It's way beyond that."

Adam Sandler ( news ) and Drew Barrymore ( news )'s romantic comedy "50 First Dates" had a $5.3 million weekend and pushed its total to $106.6 million, following "The Passion" as the second movie released in 2004 to cross the $100 million mark.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Passion of the Christ," $31.7 million.

2. "Secret Window," $19 million.

3. "Starsky & Hutch," $16 million.

4. "Hidalgo," $11.7 million.

5. "Agent Cody Banks: Destination London," $8 million.

6. "50 First Dates," $5.3 million.

7. "Twisted," $3.1 million.

8. "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen," $2.4 million.

9. "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," $2.05 million.

10. "Spartan," $2 million.

Yiz

DIM

Looks like Jesus continues to fool the world again. Rock on Jesus.

freedom96

I am going to see it again.

patio34

You couldn't pay me to see it.

PopeOfEruke

I always think of the Danny Glovers line from the 2nd (??) Lethal Weapon movie : "Nailed that sucker!!" when he kills the baddie with the nail gun. Maybe Mel got the idea for the Jesus movie from here??

What about when Jesus walks into the hotel lobby, drops 2 nails onto the desk and says "Here's 2 nails ...can you put me up for the night?".

Pope

Satanus

Well, i hope mel makes a bundle, because he's finished in hollywood. Jews there have stated that they won't work w him, anymore.

SS

patio34

Interesting, SS.

wednesday

i thought it was wonderful and I forsee Mel making a lot more of these kinds of movies. I don't think he'll have a problem getting people to work with him, after all the money this movie has made. Who wouldn't want to be in his movies? Box office hits, appeal to most people on some level.

PopeOfEruke

SS

I can't see that happening. Like the punchline to the old joke goes "Well, business is business"....and as we all know in Hollywoord, money doesn't talk, it swears....

Pope

Satanus

http://entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,8805417%255E7485%255E%255Enbv,00.html

STUDIO chiefs in Hollywood have pledged to black-ban Mel Gibson for his film The Passion of The Christ, which earned more than $637,000 when it opened in Australia on Wednesday.
The chairmen of two Hollywood studios said they would avoid working with Gibson because of the film, which he directed and financed, and his comments surrounding its release, the New York Times reported yesterday.
One of the studio chairmen, who asked for anonymity, told the newspaper: "It doesn't matter what I say. It'll matter what I do. I will do something. I won't hire him. I won't support anything he's part of. Personally that's all I can do."

The other studio chairman, whose family escaped the Holocaust, said he thought he could "live without" the actor-director.
Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, the co-heads of the studio DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg, have also privately expressed anger over the film, according to an inside source quoted by the New York Times.

Good point pope. There is a small possibility that you are right. Hollywood jews don't care about morals, or much of anything, except money, as you pointed out. But, they do care about israel, and the cause of jews. They will even sacrifice individual jews for the group cause.

An x-zionist, converted to christianity, israel shamir, explained some jewish establishment issues w this movie:

Zionists formed an alliance with the misled Christian Conservatives, and the US troops took over Iraq and Afghanistan, while supporting the Israeli offensive against the native Palestinians in the Holy Land. Then came Mel Gibson, and their alliance fell apart. Thus, Christ indeed was our secret weapon against the Zionist takeover. I felt it for long time; ever since on Easter 2001 I referred to His Passion in context of Palestinian suffering, just to be immediately frozen out by mainstream Jewish pro-peace groups. Let us raise the banner of Christ, for it causes split amongst our adversaries.
Professor Patrick McNally wrote that the Judeo-Nazis repeated the error of German Nazis; they became over-extended by opening the Second Front. They could not help: they attacked Gibson and the American Christians, though their support was necessary for the Middle East takeover. TOP
Sidney Blumenthal, an American Zionist Jew and a former senior adviser to President Clinton, wrote in the Guardian: ?The neocons and the theocons (conservative Christians) were bound together for different reasons: the neocons by foreign policy (read: support of Israel), the theocons by their continuing fundamentalist revolt against modernity (for modernity read: neo-liberalism). Enter Mel Gibson, sprinkling holy gasoline on the fires and blowing up the cultural contradictions of American conservatism.?[i] It frightened Jews, concludes Blumenthal, and therefore Bush must go.
In Israel, this understanding came first. Gershom Gorenberg wrote in the Jerusalem Report[ii]:
?Post-9/11, the "conflict of civilizations" is often taken for granted; it supposedly pits the "Judeo-Christian" world against Muslims. That mood, along with the Intifada, has fertilized an alliance twinning Israeli right-wingers and some U.S. Jewish leaders with conservative Christians. The Passion should sober people up.
?By attacking The Passion, Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League helped to publicize it. I don?t think they had a better option. To ignore a film in which Pilate is a softy and the Jews cry for Jesus? blood would be equivalent to pleading "no contest" to the West?s oldest calumny. But the Passion affair underlines the absurdity of the romance between Jewish groups (including the ADL) and the Christian Right. TOP
Gershom Gorenberg is right. This alliance of Christ-loving American Conservatives and Christ-hating Jewish leadership was absurd from the beginning. The Christians in the US, as elsewhere, belong to the traditional all-embracing faith of love to the poor and downtrodden. The Jewish establishment subscribes to the faith which is good for the rich and powerful Chosen People, whether Jews or godless Mammon worshippers. Their alliance was a peculiar quirk of history that brought mankind to the edge of the abyss.

Read the rest of the article @ http://www.israelshamir.net/english/Stumble.htm

SS

'Passion' Moves Beyond $250 Million Mark

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