Passion's Book-ings
by Daisy Maryles -- Publishers Weekly, 3/8/2004
The media has been trumpeting the astounding numbers for Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion of the Christ. Variety's top-10 weekend chart, in its March 1 issue, put the movie at the top of the list with a three-day gross of $76.3 million; the three-day gross for the other nine films on that list was about $51 million combined. If you add in the gross for the film's first two days (it opened February 25), the total goes up to $117.5 million. It's not surprising, then, that Tyndale's The Passion, an officially licensed collection of photos taken on the set of Gibson's movie, has gone back to press for the sixth time and will have 525,000 copies before March ends. First printing was 150,000 copies. It also has an additional 43,000 copies in its foreign-language editions—Spanish, German and Norwegian—and the publisher is in discussion for editions in Portuguese, Dutch, Polish and other languages. Everett O'Bryan, v-p of sales at Tyndale, expects demand to accelerate as Easter draws near. He notes that the book is selling briskly in all outlets—Christian retail, general bookstores, discount stores, online, etc.
