Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of the Christ, continues to steamroll its way through the top-ten list of highest grossing movies of all time, and to do so with relatively little traditional advertising. In fact, the word of mouth attached to Gibson’s feast of religious ultraviolence has been so strong that it’s changing the way some Hollywood types think about PR. With pastors, priests, and preachers around the world exhorting their followers to see the movie, this weekend’s Easter celebrations can be seen as the ultimate marketing tie-in, as Passion aims for thate loftiest of moviemaking goals: a $1 billion payday.
Tag: 04.08.04
Detroit Symphony Reduces Its Summer Season
Struggling to cope with a multimillion-dollar deficit, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has cut way back on the concerts it plays at the Meadow Brook Music Festival, where the DSO has traditionally played 15 summer concerts over 5 weeks. In January, the orchestra completed a mid-contract renegotiation with its musicians, who agreed to temporary pay cuts and furlough weeks in an effort to balance the books, but the Meadow Brook cuts will still leave a 3-week gap in the summer schedule, which could be filled by a statewide tour, or an expansion of the DSO’s other summer activities.
Culture Capital Crusader Quits
“The head of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture team has resigned from his £100,000-plus role after just two months. Kevin Johnson, the chief operating officer, cites personal reasons for his decision to leave the post,” and sources say that he was simply tired of commuting from his home in Scotland. Cultural leaders in the city are expressing surprise and disappointment, but with the next Europe-wide Capital of Culture competition nearly four years away, no one on the Liverpool team is panicking.
The Pulitzers – Is Writing About Cars Real Criticism?
Many were surprised this week when the Pulitzer for criticism went to someone who writes about cars. Is writing about cars real criticism? “Cars are literally what connects the city of Los Angeles. I’m sure some people will clench their fists and decry the award as the end of our culture, but it seems like a completely reasonable choice to me.”
London’s Newest Opera Company Debuts
Raymond Gubbay’s Savoy Opera opens. With cheap tickets, the opera attracts an audience you don’t typically see at Covent Garden. “It’s a myth that opera is posh; it’s the most visceral of art forms, preoccupied with love, sex and death. It’s just opera-goers who have given it a bad name. If Gubbay can reclaim it for coach parties who might otherwise go to Mamma Mia!, good for him.”
Artist Smuggles Rat Into Museum
“The graffiti artist Banksy has managed to smuggle in his latest work, a dead rat in a glass-fronted box, into the Natural History Museum where it was exhibited on a wall for several hours. Staff did not notice that the rat was out of place amid the museum’s usual fare of dinosaur bones and artefact from the animal kingdom.”
British Museum – Art Palace Or Coffee House?
“Has the British Museum gone a cafe or two too far? Ever since the V&A found itself at the centre of a storm in a teacup with its Saatchi-devised ‘An ace caff with quite a nice museum attached’ campaign of 1988, museums have taken over where the 18th-century coffee house left off. More than mere icing on the cake, they have become the bread and butter (or perhaps that should be ciabatta and olive oil) of many visits.”
When Poetry Outstrips The Audience
Poetry is popular but poetry doesn’t sell. It doesn’t get reviewed and people don’t buy it. “So the situation for poetry is bleak and not because of an indifferent nation. The fault is in the poets, whose demands for attention have outstripped any possible audience. Perfect. Poetry and poets in America love a state of siege.”