Box Office Bonanza

In a semihilarious Back Page send-up in The New Yorker, Steve Martin imagines studio notes to Mel Gibson. Besides trying to change Mary Magdalene's first name to Heather ("could skew our audience a little younger"), mogul "Stan" suggests: "Could the rabbis be Hispanic? There's lots of hot Latino actors now, could give us a little zing at the box office. Research says there's some justification for it."

Imaginary or not, this may be the first time a studio note was even remotely right.

L.A. Weekly has learned that, according to research exit polls, The Passion of the Christ is attracting a gargantuan 40 percent Latino audience in the cities tested. Until now, there has been only anecdotal evidence that Latinos, as well as Asians and African-Americans, are flocking to the film. The research shows that Latinos are rating Passion higher than does any other ethnic group, and 76 percent say they're inclined to pay to see the movie again. Not only do 86 percent of Latinos say the film is excellent, but 80 percent say the movie is better than they expected. And while a whopping percentage of the overall audience says they would definitely recommend it, that figure among Latinos is a startling 91 percent.

For too long now, Hollywood moviemakers, who have forced on us countless casts of blond and blue-eyed bimbos and himbos, have been stumped on how to appeal to Latinos, the largest ethnic minority in the country. Is Hollywood idiotic or what? Here, television empires have been built on the gazillion dollars flowing from Latino viewers. G.E. even bought Telemundo because of this. Yet it's been eons since La Bamba and Selena were big hits, and Jennifer Lopez is the first genuine Latina movie superstar (though probably not for long, post-Gigli), even if Salma Hayek and Rosie Perez are far more talented. But Chasing Papi, released a year ago, was a surprise bomb for 20th Century Fox despite high hopes for the low-budget, high-concept comedy. And Latino-themed small films, like Empire and Real Women Have Curves, barely registered a blip at the box office. There is, however, hype for Columbia's Spanglish coming later this from James Brooks and starring Adam Sandler and a Latina newcomer. This, at a time when African-American movies are making major crossover numbers.

So here's Mel, not just pulling in Latinos but even Latino families. He did what no one else has been able to. Frankly, it never occurred to the godless Hollywood liberals -- as the folks at Fox News Network and wacko right-wing Web sites refer to us -- to use religion as bait for Latinos. And it never occurred to the Democratic Party, pal of most Hollywood filmmakers, to embrace Gibson or his movie. Big mistake. Huge! Because in the 2004 presidential race for Latino votes, any advantage at all could be the difference between winning and losing.

Instead, the conservative propaganda machine is embracing Gibson and The Passion with, well, passion, and it's become a cornerstone of the Republicans' strategy to divide this country culturally between the supposed elites they're so fond of criticizing (tell us, are the rich who get all of Bush's tax breaks not also the elite?) and just regular Americans, whom they presume to be on their side along with God. GOPers who never found anyone in Hollywood they liked besides Ronald Reagan (and, barely, Ah-nuld) are fawning over Mel and his movie because they smelled a hit in the making. They smelled right: You can't argue with a box office that will hit $250 mil this weekend.

In one fell swoop, Republicans established a strong bond with the most religious members of those ethnic groups who are supposed to vote Democratic (even if right-wing Republicanism is overwhelmingly anti-immigration). Is that enough for Bible-thumping Latinos, African-Americans and Asians to change political sides? It may not matter: Just having made such a significant inroad could be enough for conservatives to build on in the future since Latinos are expected to grow to 14 percent of the nation's population in 2010, and half of that population is younger than age 26, and 40 percent is under 18.