IT'S JUST A QUESTION OF WHICH DISTRIBUTOR...

From yesterdays Variety:

Interest is heating up for Mel Gibson's controversial Aramaic and Latin-language pic The Passion.

A number of distributors -- Newmarket, Paramount Classics, Sony Classics and Lions Gate, among them -- are talking to Icon Prods.' Bruce Davey and ICM chairman Jeff Berg about a possible North American deal, even though they have yet to see the pic. Gibson's Icon produced the pic, and Berg reps it....Reps for Icon Prods., which produced the pic about the last 12 hours of Christ's life before his crucifixion, said no distribution decisions would be made until after Labor Day.

Ahem. Now, I'm not one to say, "I told you so"....