ABSTRACT
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was the surprise box offi ce hit of 2004. Generating in its fi rst year more than $370 million in domestic revenue, the movie went on to garner more than $600 million from theater attendance revenues and another $400 million in DVD sales. Who could have guessed that a movie about the horribly torturous fi nal 12 hours of the life of Jesus, told in Aramaic and Latin, would become one of the top ten box offi ce hits of all time? Evidently Mel Gibson knew because he was willing to risk $30 million of his own money to fund this picture when no one else would touch it.
