The entertainment reporter for FoxNews.com appears to find a nefarious pattern in what theaters will be showing The Passion. Since it won’t be showing in mainly Jewish, upscale, or liberal neighborhoods, he thinks it’s part of the anti-Semitism of the movie. Gee, could it be because Mel thinks it will appeal mostly to Christian audiences and therefore it’s best to show it where the conservative Christians are? Of course, even in liberal Massachusetts it’s showing in some big theatres and pretty widely. Our local mega-multiplex will be showing it. People who are afraid of this movie are getting pretty desparate if this is the best they can do.
One of the BIG NUMBERS they look at is $/theater. By limiting the number of theaters, you up the $ figure per, and then people really jump on the band wagon.
When it all gets down to it in this country, money rules… if it is a SMASH!! in the theaters it opens in, then it will be distributed more broadly.
You don’t want picketers to keep people away, and how you do that is you show it away from where the likely pickets would be…
This is like Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber, being asked, “Why do you rob banks?” Willie replied, “‘Cuz that’s where the money is.”
The distributors are going to play the movie in the place “where the money is,” plain and simple. No conspiracy here: just capitalism.
Ah, but Father Stanley, capitalism is a nefarious Jewish plot to undermine solidarity, commodify all human relations, and turn man away from the civilization of love. Therefore, by following the logic of capitalism, the bookers of THE PASSION are showing themselves to be instruments of the Jews.
OK, seriously … I’ve blogged about THE PASSION’s booking patterns, away from the biggest urban areas, though the picture is somewhat complicated by the number of suburban theaters, as people in my comment field noted. Anyway, the article is here.