Plano is a wealthy suburb north of Dallas. In the context of the 2000 presidential election, it is very much a red-zone city in a very red-zone state. It is also home to some of the largest evangelical churches in the United States, including Prestonwood Baptist Church and its 22,000 members. Today, long-time member, Dallas financial-services executive Arch Bonnema, spent $42,000 to buy out all 20 screens at the Tinseltown for opening-day showings of “The Passion,” beginning at 6:30 a.m. In all, he purchased nearly 6,000 tickets, half of which went to Preston Baptist members and half of which went to senior citizens, theology students and others who requested seats.
Bonnema’s not alone. For months, Gibson’s production company, Icon, and the film’s distributor, Newmarket Films, have worked with churches and conservative evangelical groups to build word-of-mouth on the film. Gibson recently estimated that 20,000 people saw the movie before it opened. Churches and religious organizations in cities across the United States booked entire theaters for opening day. The Associated Press reported that the National Association of Evangelicals–representing 50 denominations with 43,000 congregations–promoted the movie on its Web site to help sell tickets.
All that networking worked: Newmarket says advance sales hit $10 million and the film is opening in 3,006 theaters on 4,643 screens nationwide. That’s a wider opening than the third movie in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy had at the end of last year. By some estimates, Mel Gibson stands to pocket more than $25 million in profit, after sinking at least that amount of his own money into making the film.
For many churches, “The Passion” seems to represent an especially well-publicized marketing opportunity. Staffers from Prestonwood Baptist were spread throughout the Tinseltown, handing out literature about Christ and their church. Prestonwood ministers led prayers in each theater before and after screenings; they also asked attendees to fill out “decision cards.” Those signing the cards could pick from several choices to describe themselves: A for “I affirm that I already know Christ as my Lord and Savior; B for “this is a moment of belief;” C for those “who are considering receiving Christ as their Lord and savior,” and D for nonbelievers and “I really don’t intend to believe in Jesus.”
As invited guests, the crowds at the Plano screenings were primed to give the film a big thumbs-up–and they did, at least those who wanted to talk to NEWSWEEK. During the excruciating torture scenes, a few muffled sobs and gasps could be heard. And no wonder: one segment depicting the scourging of Jesus by Roman guards lasts a full 10 minutes and by the end Jesus is an all but unrecognizable mass of bloody, flayed tissue. “When I saw the scene where Jesus took 40 lashes, I thought, ‘I couldn’t take one’,” said Bonnema, the patron who bought the 6,000 tickets. “I’ve seen ‘The Robe’ and ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told.’ All of the stories in the Bible said that his family didn’t recognize him. I think Mel shows how violent it was. It really didn’t hit home for me until I saw this film.”
Bonnema’s son Jacob, 26, described the film as a “classic battle of good versus evil. It’s a great story of love versus evil. And love wins in the end. You’ll walk out more moved than ‘Saving Private Ryan’ or ‘Schindler’s List’.” With its heavy emphasis on extremely violent imagery as well as some (often slightly hokey) computer-generated special effects, the film actually may do well among boys and young men. “I never pictured him going through such torture,” said Ryan Bayron, a home-schooled 18-year-old who attended with his father, Rod Bayron. Both were brought to tears by the conclusion of the film. “I’ve known it, but when you see it with your eyes, it jumps out at you–he went through this for you.”
His father, Rod, acknowledged that the violence was difficult to watch. “You flinch when you see the movie. There are parts that make you want to look away but you can’t.” His son added: You know that it’s makeup and props and that the blood is not real, but that’s not what you think about when you watch the movie. I felt like I was there.”
Concern that the film might stoke anti-Semitism wasn’t widespread among this audience. Many pointed out that it was Roman soldiers who administered the brutal scourging and beatings and, finally, nailed Christ to the cross in another extended sequence of extreme violence. Almost no one questioned the movie’s portrayal of Pontius Pilate as ambivalent about killing Christ. Most scholars agree that Pilate was a supremely brutal dictator. “How do we really know what Pilate was really like anyway?,” asked Joshua Kruse, 26, a graduate student at Dallas Theological Seminary. “Any time you put a written form into a visual medium you are taking a lot of creative liberties. If you look at the Gospels, Pilate is in, what, three or four paragraphs? So to depict an entire character–his person, his mannerisms–you just have to take some creative license, with responsibility of course.”
For many at the theater this Ash Wednesday, the opening of “The Passion” seemed less a movie premier than a signal event in the on-going battle between good and evil, linked to the U.S. war in Iraq and the question of same-sex marriage at home. “You’re right on,” said the Rev. Jack Graham, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church. “I don’t believe this is an accident. This is a provenance of God, that in the midst of an international war on terrorism, in the midst of a cultural and domestic war for the family… God raises up a standard. Jesus said, ‘If I be lifted up, I will draw all unto myself.’ When man does his worst, God does his best and that’s the message of the cross.”
