Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 24, 2004
'Passion' may be hotter ticket than Harry Potter by Barbara Vanchieri
In the arena of advance tickets, Jesus Christ trumps Harry Potter -- at least at one local theater.
"Ticket sales are absolutely amazing. We've sold more for this than for Harry Potter," said Sandy Baker, vice president of marketing for Star City Cinemas in South Fayette, which drew crowds for "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
It is one of 14 locations in the Pittsburgh area that tomorrow are opening the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ," which recounts the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus (played by James Caviezel). In addition to Star City, the picture is opening at five Carmike locations, the Squirrel Hill Theater, all three Showcase Cinemas, Destinta's North Versailles megaplex, Loews, the Oaks and Waterworks.
Star City is showing "The Passion" on three screens, and while its 7:05 p.m. screening tomorrow is pretty much sold out, tickets are still available for the other showings.
The 14-screen theater also has been selling blocks of tickets to church groups. "Some are buying a couple of hundred, 200 or 250 at a time," Baker says, and have inquired about bringing youth-group members to a movie rated R (no one under 17 admitted without parent or guardian). The designation is for sequences of graphic violence.
"We are really going to have to police that, although I don't know if parents are going to want their children to see it without them," Baker says. "Our feeling on that is, if they have permission slips from their parents, they have to be accompanied by an adult who will take over as guardian."
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Get complete coverage of the opening of "The Passion of the Christ" in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Barry Paris will have a review, religion writer Ann Rodgers will have a commentary and Barbara Vancheri writes about other controversial films with religious themes.
- - - - - John Lacny
People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!