… somebody should go explain to Mel Gibson that it is exceedingly unlikely, to say the least that The Passion of the Christ will ever be shown uncut on network television. Yes, I know, bringing a gross of $353 million in the domestic market normally turns a director into the proverbial 800lb gorilla, but I think that it’s safe to say that getting this film past the network suits would require precisely the sort of cuts that Gibson refuses to even contemplate.
And let’s not even talk about what the USA Network would require…
Lessee. If I correctly remember USA Up All Night with Gilbert Gottfried (and I certainly do), it requires softcore lesbians in prison.
So you can use Mary Magdelene….
(No disrespect seriously meant, of course.)
If Spike TV can show Bull Durham uncut (well, except for the f-word), surely they could show The Passion.
Weren’t both Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan shown uncut on some network? I know South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut was shown uncut on Comedy Central (though at midnight). I don’t think it’s likely The Passion will be shown on network TV, but it’s certainly not out of the question.
Jesus Christ…
Confusing network TV with cable.
Timmy, it’s true. But with the proliferation of cable and satellite TV (and the declarations of the cable channels that they’re networks, and the fact that many cable and satellite TV providers now offer the local channels as well), I’m not sure the phrase “network television” is really an effective turn of phrase anymore. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a better one. “Affiliate-based”? “Antenna-ready”?
(Incidentally, the Yahoo! story does the same kind of thing when it mentions Passion‘s “home video release”. While technically accurate, the phrase conjures, to me, images of videocassettes, which I doubt is what they want me inferring.)
The fact remains, though, that the story wasn’t just talking about ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, and while that may have been the point Moe was making (that the Big Four aren’t likely to show the film uncut), there’s certainly a chance that it’ll be shown elsewhere – and frankly, if I owned one of the smaller networks, I’d be first in line to show Passion uncut. A $383-million-gross film that the Big Four are passing on would probably boost ratings long after the movie itself was old news.
“But with the proliferation of cable and satellite TV”…
“..the phrase conjures, to me, images of videocassettes, which I doubt is what they want me inferring..”
You big-city elitist 🙂
Hey, I might work in Baltimore, but I live where the buses don’t go. 😉
In all honesty, I don’t have cable access (Comcast hasn’t run lines down our road; there is a guy up the street a few hundred feet who has cable, but he’s had it run overland from an existing trunk and won’t allow Comcast to run the lines any further on his property) and while I do have a satellite dish (DirecTV), it’s only barely; the trees are almost too tall to permit even that. I’m running a 56k modem at home (that gets 48.8k on good days), and most of “my” DVDs actually belong to my housemate*.
And I’m serious about the buses – they stop about five miles south of my house.
So, yeah. “Big-city elitist”? I wish I were. 😉
* Who is, incidentally, going to be the one buying The Passion, if anyone in the household does.
EDG, you never heard of satellite dish TV, all the cable channels without the cable.
Timmy:
. . .