I was thinking that Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ has also gone on to set another record. It is the only international blockbuster that gets zero television, cable, or subscription cable replay. While channels like HBO and others run the same movies over and over as far as I am aware TPOTC has never appeared on any of these channels. It would be really interesting to hear their defense of this. Especially if they were concerned that it might offend some people. Now that would be ironic if they were suddenly worried about offending people especially since I sometimes see The Last Temptation of Christ appear in the television guides.
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Hi Jeff,
I was overseas in Rome for Easter (awesome, though I’m glad to be home). But back home – in Australia – The Passion was shown uncut, without ads in primetime on free-to-air TV.
On Good Friday!
See for yourself
Now that’s miraculous!
Jeff, good point, as usual.
. . . and we know that Duh Vinci Code will be get saturation coverage.
showtime is currenty airing it
But,as my sister says, it wouldn’t work with having commercials interupt it every 15 min.
Actually, it was broadcasted on Showtime this past Saturday, as well as several more broadcasts later this month. I was shocked to see the commercial for it.
So, do what we did and show it at your parish one evening during Holy Week. People appreciate it, and it is nice to watch it without commercials, the telephone, or puppy interruptions.
A beautiful movie that only gets better.
I was wondering the exact same thing, actually… especially why it wasn’t shown on EWTN.
Here’s an interesting news item that focuses on Showtime’s broadcast of TPoTC:
“Apparently, Showtime was the only premium network to have much passion for Gibson�s film. Despite its box-office success, Home Box Office passed, saying it didn�t have room for the Icon Distribution Inc. title within its huge Hollywood library, according to HBO VP Jeff Cusson.”
Here’s the link to that story:
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6308633.html
According to IMDB, TPoTC is also showing on a cable outlet called “Sky Movies.” I never heard of ’em.
Sky is a UK based Television Company.
I am not familiar with how TV works and everything, but would it be possible for EWTN to show the Passion of the Christ. It would be great as it would get this awesome movie out on TV more and will also bring people’s attention to EWTN who might have never watched EWTN.
Sky’s sister network in Asia, StarTV (both are part of News Corp), showed TPOTC on its movie channel, StarMovies, during Good Friday, and Ash Wednesday too AFAIK.
I live in India and was very pleasantly surprised to see “The Passion of the Christ, Recut Version” shown on “Star Movies network” (an affiliate of “Star World Television”, an all American programming network, similar to HBO, although HBO is also available here) on both Ash Wednesday and Good Friday! It is particularly cool since this network broadcasts into Indonesia and Malaysia as well, which are both Muslim countries which opposed the showing of the movie in theatres when it was first released. I haven’t found any reports about it or reactions to it there; I think it was all a very quiet, low key witnessing. I can only hope that many people saw it and were moved by it.
My guess is that it is not being shown on EWTN for one of two reasons:
1. EWTN won’t/can’t pay Mel Gibson anything to show it, and he is still in “earnings mode” with it. It costs a lot to own an island.
2. EWTN wised up to the fact that Gibson is schismatic, and they don’t want to give him any more air time.
It aired on a subscription premiere channel both
Good Friday evening and afterward here in Germany. There’s a PIN to enter (requirement is based on the rating and the time of day) so child protection isn’t as much of a concern.
TPOTC was shown here in the Philippines on Star network on Holy Thursday night.
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