L.A. Times: 'Huge' Turnout Expected for Gibson Film

Mel Gibson, who spent as much as $30 million of his own money making a film he was warned would be a box office disaster, may recoup his entire investment within five days of its opening on Feb. 25.

According to the Los Angeles Times, no booster of Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ," just three weeks before its release the film "has the industry buzzing – not just because of its controversial portrayal of Jesus' last hours – but because it seems to be generating the kind of interest among moviegoers that could deliver $25 million to $30 million in its first five days."

Considering that distributor Newmarket Films has yet to run either conventional print or television ads in advance of the film's opening, the tracking numbers which show that on Friday the ticket-selling group Fandango's advance sales for the film comprised 43 percent of its total sales this week are, the Times wrote, "remarkable for an R-rated religious-themed movie employing unconventional marketing techniques."

The Times credited the huge interest in the film with coming from what it called "an unusual marketing campaign in which Gibson has reached out to sympathetic Christian evangelical churches which included a so-called satellite-broadcast "training event" that the newspaper reported would be staged in about 400 churches nationwide Sunday providing a 'boot camp of information' about outreach opportunities, organizers told the Times.