A dramatic change with Passion Of The Christ

When was the last time all the four new movies in a wide release flopped in the same week?

While 50 First Dates continues to lure teenagers despite a hefty 48.7 per cent drop at the US box-office, there was no good news for the newcomers. Though the films did not cost too much, they flopped badly, leaving a sour taste.

Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen was the second highest grossing film of the week, but it drew just $9 million at the box-office this weekend. The comedy, starring Lindsay Lohan as a big city girl who has to start a new life in theNew Jersey suburbs, was also slammed by major critics.

The box-office scene will change dramatically on Wednesday as the Mel Gibson directed The Passion Of The Christ opens wide. Though the film was made in ancient languages and is subtitled, and though some Jewish organisations complained that it perpetuates centuries old image of Jews being responsible for Christ's death, it is drawing sharply mixed reviews from many publications.

Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Tribune welcomed it, but it was panned by Newsweek and New Yorker. 'One of the cruelest movies in the history of cinema,' New Yorker's David Denby declared, calling the $30 million 'a sickening death trip, a grimly unilluminated procession of treachery, beatings, blood and agony.'

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'Gibson is thoroughly fixated on the scourging and crushing of Christ,' Denby continued, 'and is so meagrely involved in the spiritual meanings of the final hours that he falls in danger of altering Jesus's message of love into one of hate.'

Is the film anti-Semitic? It 'confirms the old justifications for persecuting the Jews,' wrote Denby. 

In the trade publication Variety, Todd McCarthy contended the film was 'violent, contentious, emotional, extreme and highly proficient,' but he also felt "this must be the Jesus movie for this era.

Ebert found the film to be 'gravely intense and the work of a man as deeply committed to his subject as one could hope for or, for that matter, want, that really seems to deal with what actually happened.'

Newsweek's David Ansen found the film to be, 'relentlessly savage. To these secular eyes at least, Gibson's movie is more likely to inspire nightmares than devotion,' he asserted.

On the subject of last week's hits and stinkers, Drama Queen was followed by Miracle, the feel good sports movie that has revived Kurt Russell's career and has grossed about $50 million in three weeks.

The political satire Welcome To Mooseport, starring Gene Hackman at the fourth place, was anything but presidential. It made just about $6.8 million.

Teen comedies generally fare well but Eurotrip, which had certain amount of sweetness despite its gross-out jokes, was no winner at the fifth position.

Though Barbershop 2 took a big hit, the urban comedy has already grossed $53 million in three weeks. It was followed at seventh place by the durable psychological murder mystery Mystic River, that came close to an $80 million total gross.

If it wins a couple of major Oscars, the Clint Eastwood-directed film might reach the $100 million benchmark. Next to it was Meg Ryan's utterly disappointing Against The Ropes, with a measly $3 million gross. This is the second Meg Ryan flop in a row, following the erotic mystery In The Cut.

The surprise psychological hit The Butterfly Effect at ninth position was closely followed by Return Of The King, which reached $361 million in North America. Its total worldwide gross will soon reach an historic $1 billion.