Would you like a witness card with your fries?

Commenting on onefixedstar‘s entry, my thoughts were getting unwieldy, so the rest of them
are here…

Since “The Passion” is the only Jesus movie which depicts just the
Passion in isolation, you have to already know the story for it to be
relevant – otherwise it’s just a brutally violent movie with no
plot.  Apparently there is no character development at all, and
no story to speak of.  Which is why some critics are comparing it
to pornography.

And the marketing is based on “knowing the story”.  And I guess they decided that
Christians had a bigger market share than Jews. Which is why they
developed canned sermons for Christian priests to use to plug the
movie. And special screened it for fundamentalist Christian groups. And
got “big name” Christians onside and vocal at an early stage. Oh yes, did you
know there is merchandise? Official merchandise includes:
-a nail
pendant on a leather string
-co-op commercials churches can buy.  These
are a trailer for the movie which will let the church plug themselves
at the end for 10 seconds (only $795, $1790 if you want your pastor in the ad)
-“witness cards” – with a movie promotion on one side and an
evangelical message on the other.

Mmmm religious marketing…