Sales of the movie on disc are expected to boost his profit from the film to more than $400 million.

BY DAVID HILTBRAND

Philadelphia Inquirer

If, as the Bible says, it is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, Mel Gibson is in for a very tough afterlife.

With "The Passion of the Christ" due out today on DVD and VHS, Gibson is poised to reap a second immense fortune from his controversial film about the final hours of Jesus.

"It's safe to say Gibson will reap the most money any one person ever has from a single movie," says Brandon Gray, president of the film-tracking firm Boxofficemojo.com..................

Since its theatrical release in February, the film, with Jim Caviezel in the title role, has earned at least $609 million worldwide.

Because "Passion" was essentially self-produced, Gibson's take has been estimated at more than $200 million. In light of that windfall, Forbes magazine recently declared him the world's most powerful celebrity.

Now, DVD sales are expected to boost Gibson's personal profits above $400 million.

It's a shockingly lucrative turn of events for a project most people thought of as Gibson's folly.

No recent film has carried grimmer commercial prospects: a long, R-rated movie, full of unremitting brutality and suffering, set in ancient times, and focused on a religious figure. Just for good measure, throw in dialogue in two dead languages -- Aramaic and Latin -- necessitating subtitles.

Even Gibson, 48, a traditionalist Roman Catholic, termed his determination to get "The Passion" made "suicidal." In addition to directing and co-writing the film, the longtime matinee idol and action star was forced to put up $25 million himself when several Hollywood studios balked at bankrolling what was universally perceived as an albatross.

Then the Christian community rallied around the embattled film before its release on Ash Wednesday, encouraging the faithful to get out to see it early and often.

"'The Passion' brought people into theaters that hadn't been to a movie ever -- or at least in a long time," says Steve Feldstein, senior vice president at Fox Home Entertainment, which is distributing the DVD. "The non-secular community was instrumental in its success."

That religious constituency is expected to supercharge sales.

"I'm sure that most of the evangelical churches in the country will buy at least one copy for their libraries," says Bob Waliszewski, entertainment specialist at Focus on the Family, an influential Christian ministry based in Colorado Springs. "Many evangelical families will buy a copy and make a habit of watching it around Easter time."

"The home office anticipates it to be one of the biggest (DVD) releases of the year," said Bill Gish, co-manager of the Wal-Mart at 6110 W. Kellogg. His store has received a double shipment, he said, or about 1,200 DVDs.

Fox has been actively preaching to the choir. "We've initiated outreach to churches and para-church organizations," Feldstein says. "There have been a variety of mailings and e-mail campaigns, much of it at a grassroots level."

In a unique promotion, Fox offered churches a preorder discount on bulk packs of 50 DVDs or 50 VHS tapes. For an additional fee, the packaging on each copy could be customized with the church's name, a quotation from Scripture, or some other personalized message.

"There will be an extraordinarily high number of sales in the box loads. That's something you don't normally see," says Scott Hettrick, editor-in-chief of DVD Exclusive, an industry publication. "This title is bringing in a lot of people that never converted from VHS to DVD. You're getting quite a new audience."

The suggested retail price is $29.98 for DVD, $24.98 for VHS. The initial release contains only the film with no bonus features.

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