Older fairy-tale wizard beats out younger upstart

http://www.post-gazette.com/breaking/20040224passionp3.asp

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 24, 2004

'Passion' may be hotter ticket than Harry Potter 
by Barbara Vancheri


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." 

----------

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!


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