The Passion of the Christ earned <A
HREF=”http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000446045″>$23.6
million during its Wednesday opening. The New York Times was
ready on Thursday morning to <A
HREF=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/movies/26PASS.html”>explain it
away: “Daytime showings in Tulsa, Okla., and Dallas, where churches had
bought blocks of tickets were sold out, but in Richmond, VA., and Boston,
theaters were less than half-full.”
The afternoon of a workweek is a poor measure of interest in any movie
outside of “Star Wars” or “Lord of the Rings.” Had the reporter of that
story joined me at the 7:00 PM showing of The Passion in
Springfield, VA, she would have seen a rarity: the manager decided to open
up a second theater because the first one was packed full.
All attendees, including elderly people, had to climb the steep steps of a
broken escalator to simply reach the box office window. The elderly folks
I saw may have been out of breath but they remained determined to confirm
Ralph Winter and Mark Joseph’s <A
HREF=”http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/winter_joseph200402250840.asp”>prediction
in NRO on Tuesday.
The popularity of The Passion is remarkable, considering the
intensity of the feelings the film provokes. The <A
HREF=”http://www.christendom.edu/news/releases.shtml#passion”>275
Christendom College students and faculty who attended the film on Ash
Wednesday returned to their college chapel for “a silent holy hour.”