Flames Of 'Passion'

By CBSNews.com's Lauren Johnston

The storm of interfaith debate has also fueled predictions of surprise commercial success with the film hitting 2,800 theaters nationwide. And a grass roots marketing strategy put in motion by Christian leaders and enthusiastic fans buying out theater tickets and promoting "Passion" merchandise didn't hurt either.

If box office projections prove true, the film is poised to earn back its $25 million production budget -- which Gibson paid for out-of-pocket -- in its first five days.

By industry standards, a subtitled religious film performed entirely in Latin and the near extinct Semitic language Aramaic (less than half a million people world-wide still speak the language at home) that has an R rating for violence should have been anything but a blockbuster. Gibson himself called the film a potential "career-killer" during production.

Its brutal take on Jesus of Nazareth's last 12 hours as a mortal man, as played by actor Jim Caviezel, has been called a "relentless, near pornographic feast of flayed flesh," and "the Gospel according to the Marquis de Sade" by varying critics. One critic dismissively called it "The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre."

But with $10 million in advance ticket sales, lines were long and some theaters packed despite warnings of blood and flying flesh.

Even before sunrise, believers and nonbelievers alike poured into movie theaters. An estimated 6,000 people filled all 20 auditoriums at a Cinemark theater in the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, to watch the film. All the tickets had been bought and donated by a local churchgoer.

Elsewhere across the nation, some couldn't wait for morning screenings. More than 100 people watched the midnight showing of "The Passion" at the ArcLight Cinemas in Los Angeles.

"I'm in shock. I'm physically weak. I'm emotional," said Joseph Camerieri, a 39-year-old paralegal student from Los Angeles who was trying to hold back tears after seeing the film.

"Never have I seen a film come together with this particular confluence of factors. The Ash Wednesday opening only adds to the film's mystique," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

"Enter the de-facto 'marketing campaign' that includes the Mel Gibson factor, the controversy and the huge amounts of press coverage and the 2,800 theater opening and I believe 'The Passion' could be the most unexpected hit we've seen in years," says Dergarabedian.

And fans are doing their part to boost the film as well.

New York enthusiasts are flocking to the Christian Publications Bookstore, the city's official, and only, distributor of a pewter nail pendant hanging on a leather cord, fashioned after those that pierced Christ's hands on the cross.

"Sales have been very swift," says assistant manager Bryan Gordon. "Before we received the first shipment, we had people reserving them."

The nails come in two sizes, a 2 ½ inch nail on a 24-inch cord goes for $16.00, while the smaller version, a nail just under two inches long on a 20-inch necklace sells for $12.99. The store also carries an official "Passion" book with screen shots and a forward by Mel Gibson and will soon stock mugs, t-shirts and other paraphernalia.

The question of what exactly Gibson has put up for sale -- a film or an ideology -- is still troubling for many and will become clear only after the film has been widely viewed.

Is "The Passion" a crucial and moving work, as evangelical Christians claim -- one that brings the Gospels to life for a modern audience in a way the written word of the Bible cannot? (Gibson swears Pope John Paul II proclaimed of the film "It is as it was" after a screening).

Does its focus on the gruesome scourging of Christ so ignore the spiritual import of Jesus' final hours that as film critic David Denby suggests, it becomes "a sickening death trip" that "falls in danger of altering Jesus' message of love into one of hate"?

Does it present, as Abraham Foxman, head of the Jewish civil rights group the Anti-Defamation League and one of the film's most vocal critics says, Gibson's own version of the Gospels -- one that has the potential inflame anti-Semitism by reviving the old belief that the Jews killed Christ.

Gibson's Traditionalist sect of Catholicism doesn't recognize Vatican reforms enacted 40 years ago that rejected the belief that Jews were responsible for Christ's death.

"He's promoting it and selling it as the Gospel truth, the historical truth, the biblical truth, which it is not," says Foxman. "It's his version of the Gospels and he filled in wherever he wanted to with whatever her wanted to. That's what makes it of concern to us."

Until Tuesday, pre-screenings of the film were closed to critics and attended almost exclusively by pastors, ministers and other Christian leaders. As of today, critics and other select viewers have seen it and begun to weigh in. And across the board, they're saying, it's no Ben-Hur.

"I'm not ready to say the film per se is anti-Semitic," says Foxman, who attended a pre-screening and says he plans to see the film again. "It's what you walk away with, and what you walk away with is an anger at the Jews.

"I read today in one of the New York newspapers, a response from someone who went to see it with his daughter. His response was, 'As a Christian I was very touched, I was very moved, but I had difficulty explaining to my 13-year old daughter why the Jews so hated Jesus.' Well, that's part of the problem. It has the potential to inflame, to infuse and that's what concerns us," he said.

Gibson has dismissed suggestions that the film is anti-Semitic or intended to inflame.

"I think that what the film speaks about is a sacrifice of a loving God willingly taken, that it's about faith, hope, love, and forgiveness, which I've, you know, said before, and that these are good, valuable messages to sort of send out there," Gibson told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly.