‘Passion’ will have big release

Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” a drama about the last hours of Jesus, is set to debut on 2,000 screens -- an unusually large release for an independent religious film made in dead languages.

The movie, with dialogue in Latin and Aramaic and English subtitles, will hit theaters Feb. 25. That would mark the widest opening ever of a subtitled picture, Variety reported. The previous record was 1,225 screens for the Hong Kong action film “Iron Monkey” in 2001.