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'Passion Recut' eases up on the gore

By wire services
Published March 10, 2005

The Passion of the Christ is back. But Mel Gibson's epic story about the final 12 hours of Jesus' life will be less gory and more family-friendly this time.

The Passion Recut, as it is called, opens Friday, two weeks before Good Friday, in 500 theaters nationwide, including several in the Tampa Bay area.

When the original version opened on Ash Wednesday last year, it had an R rating because of its graphic depiction of a bloody Jesus, who is flayed by Roman soldiers after his capture, whipped as he carries his cross through the streets and dies a slow, agonizing death when he is crucified.

The movie "is the same film in spirit," Gibson said in a statement. "I have toned down some of the more brutal scenes without removing them or compromising the impact of the film. By softening some of its more wrenching aspects, I hope to make the film and its message of love available to a wider audience."

According to Icon Productions, the company that distributes The Passion of the Christ and The Passion Recut, the film has been edited to bring it closer to a PG-13 rating but is being released unrated because the Motion Picture Association of America, which rates films, decided Recut still merited an R.

In an interview, Crowe said FBI agents told him of the threat in 2001, in the months before he won the best actor Oscar for his role as Maximus in Gladiator.

"That was the first (time) I'd ever heard the phrase "al-Qaida,' " Crowe said. "It was about - and here's another little touch of irony - taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as sort of a cultural destabilization plot."

Crowe was born in New Zealand and has a ranch in eastern Australia.

Crowe said he was shadowed by FBI agents after the threat and hired private security guards.

The movie, which Sydney Pollack directed, will be screened April 19, festival organizers announced Tuesday. Several scenes were shot last year on location inside the United Nations; some diplomats were irked because they wanted to appear oncamera and were replaced by actors.

Other films scheduled for the fourth annual festival include House of Wax, a remake of the 1953 horror flick starring Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray and Paris Hilton, and Through the Fire, a documentary about Sebastian Telfair, who jumped from high school basketball to playing guard in the National Basketball Association.

[Last modified March 10, 2005, 01:13:09]