Mel Gibson will keine große Werbekampagne starten, um The Passion of the Christ im Rennen um die Oscars zu promoten:

“You should make your film available for Academy and guild members who might not have seen it during the normal course of release. It should not be a matter of how many times you’ve seen the ad.”

The move is unusual, given that producers and distributors traditionally spend tens of millions of dollars to promote their Oscar contenders each awards season. Davey said Icon had already sent out DVD versions of Passion to the 6,000 or so voting Academy members and wanted them to decide based on the quality of the picture alone.

While the tactic would make most ordinary industry executives blanch, this film and its filmmaker are far from ordinary. The Passion stirred up wide controversy over its depiction of the final days of Christ’s life when it opened around the world back in February, and is spoken entirely in Aramaic and Latin. It generated enough interest to make more than $600m (£323m) in global ticket sales.

Ich gebe dem Film nicht wirklich große Chancen. Vielleicht ne Nominierung, aber ich denke nicht, dass er ausgezeichnet wird. Dafür war er cinematisch dann doch eher Massenware, und, hey, die Story war total unüberraschend.