By rewriting the rules of movie marketing - bypassing the Hollywood sales machinery in favor of direct appeals to churchgoing Christians - Mel Gibson turned "The Passion of the Christ" into this year's most unlikely movie blockbuster. Now, with DVD's and videos of the film going on sale next week, Hollywood is courting the faithful, hoping to turn "The Passion" into one of the industry's biggest sellers.
Twentieth Century Fox, which passed on a chance to release the controversial movie in theaters, has been wooing pastors at 260,000 churches to buy the movie in bulk and targeting more than six million Christian households with e-mail messages. The studio's home-entertainment unit describes the campaign - which is emphasizing sales in the South and Midwest, where the movie was most popular - as its most exhaustive Christian marketing effort ever.
Orders for DVD's and videos are 20 percent ahead of projections, Fox executives said. Other Hollywood executives said that Fox might be shipping more than 15 million copies to retailers, a volume indicating that the studio believes the film could become one of the few R-rated movies to join the ranks of the 10 top-selling DVD's.
"It's kind of an eclectic piece people will want in their collections," said Judith McCourt, director of research at Video Store Magazine, which tracks home-video sales. "This is going to be, in some vein, as popular a movie as 'Finding Nemo,' which had long sales legs. We are going to see that kind of selling power."
In American theaters "The Passion" has grossed more than $370 million in ticket sales, making it the second most popular movie of the year, behind only "Shrek 2," according to boxofficemojo.com.
With consumer awareness of the movie lingering at 90 percent, a result of the film's release at Eastertime and all its attending controversy, Mr. Gibson will not be a large presence in the DVD marketing, said Jeff Yordy, marketing director for 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
Fox executives say their message is as simple as reminding buyers that the home version will be available soon.
"What we said was, This is the most moving film of 2004, and it is available on DVD," Mr. Yordy said.
Since May, Fox has mailed 260,000 postcards to churches publicizing a Web site, www.thepassionofthechrist.com, through which customers could preorder bulk packages of 50 DVD's from participating retailers through July 31. Fox encouraged church leaders to urge parishioners to reserve individual copies, too.
One man called Fox hoping to buy 100,000 copies, said Steve Feldstein, senior vice president of marketing and communications for 20 Century Fox Home Entertainment. (That potential customer was directed to the Web site.) Mr. Yordy said that he received a letter from another man saying his sister had a terminal disease and wanted to get the DVD before its release. He was sent a watermarked copy that could be traced to the owner if it was pirated, Fox said.
Big merchants, including Amazon.com and Sam's Club, made advance sales at discounts of $8 to $12 off the DVD's suggested $29.98 price. Fox declined to release any sales data, but Hollywood executives said that big retailers were expected to sell two million copies or more in the first weeks after the release of the home version on Aug. 31.
At walmart.com, customers ordering advance copies of "The Passion" for $17.88 have made it that site's top-selling DVD. Advance orders have also made it a top seller at Amazon.com, at $17.99.
Churches that ordered the film in bulk were invited to buy slipcovers imprinted with the name of their congregation or a two-line message of their choice. The slipcovers are supposed to be in churches' hands next week. To stir interest, Fox distributed 10,000 limited-edition lithographs depicting Jesus, the cross and other religious images to church officials.
"The churches made the film so spectacularly successful that we knew we needed to include them," Mr. Yordy said.
This is not the first time that Fox, the fifth-biggest marketer of home videos in the first half of this year, according to the tracking service DVD Exclusive, has marketed a film specifically to a religious audience. It sends quarterly mailers to 50,000 churches in its database promoting such family-friendly fare as "Strawberry Shortcake,'' "The Sound of Music" and the 1967 "Doctor Dolittle," Mr. Feldstein said.
Those films, of course, are nothing like "The Passion," which became controversial because of its graphic depiction of the Crucifixion and the way it depicted the role of Jews in the death of Jesus. The difference of "The Passion'' and standard family fare is a significant selling point.
"There is an evangelical aspect to this," said Ann Bradford, senior vice president of marketing and strategy for Family Christian Stores, a leading Christian retailer, with 300 locations in 35 states.
In a recent survey of 5,000 customers, that company, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., found that 47.8 percent said they planned to buy "The Passion" to use in proselytizing. Ms. Bradford said that demand for "The Passion" DVD has far outstripped other films sold by the chain.
Family Christian is selling "The Passion" as part of an educationally themed package. The company is offering a free copy of "Jesus: Fact or Fiction," an instructional DVD used by churches, with each purchase of Mr. Gibson's film, as well as a 20 percent discount on a future purchase.
Some big retailers are taking a more low-key approach to selling the film.
"One of the difficulties we struggled with is, what is appropriate?" Robert Cummins, Best Buy's movie business team manager, said. "For some it is a personal purchase. We did not seek out overtly promotional opportunities for the movie." Best Buy will put up posters and store displays, but will not join with other companies, like cup or T-shirt makers, to promote the DVD. And unlike the way it handles other popular titles, it will not begin selling "The Passion'' at midnight on the eve of its release day.
Still, Mr. Cummins said, "it should be one of our biggest sellers ever."
Three-quarters of respondents to the Family Christian Stores survey said they planned to use the "Passion" DVD to aid their own spiritual growth. Fox is seeking to tap into that aspect of the film's appeal with heavy promotion aimed at individuals as well as at churches.
"We went directly to the consumer as much as possible," Mr. Yordy said. "It is a large market which needs content."
Fox has been sending up to 50,000 e-mail messages daily to Christian households and has been showing trailers of the movie at Christian music festivals around the country.
This week Fox plans to begin running television advertisements for the DVD, with extra ones in big Southern cities like Atlanta, Orlando and Little Rock, Ark.; in Texas, which has a large Hispanic population; and in other states where the movie was particularly popular, including Ohio. Fox executives said that they did not know how advance sales have divided between individuals and bulk orders from churches, so it is hard to gauge the success of that company's marketing effort. While some churches used the film's release as a way to attract new members, representatives of some churches contacted last week said that they did not have similar plans for the DVD's release.
David Chrzan, chief of staff at Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., who said the congregation draws 20,000 churchgoers on an average Sunday, said that the church rented 47 screens at theaters and attracted 10,000 viewers for showings of "The Passion" earlier this year. But it has not made bulk purchases of the DVD and has no formal plans to encourage members to buy it.
"There was freshness to the movie, an opportunity," Mr. Chrzan said. "A lot of cultural attention was put on it, both among believers and nonbelievers." "The Passion,'' which elicited strong emotional reactions among many viewers, can now be viewed privately at home, which Mr. Chrzan said would "attract a lot more attention with the curious.'' He added, "Then they can maintain their anonymity.''
He continued, "There are a lot of people checking this guy Jesus out, and it is not necessarily a communal experience."