Remember when Mel Gibson "re-cut" The Passion of the Christ and released a "kinder, friendlier" version of the flick just over a year after the original cut hit the scene? (And how nobody really cared anymore by that point?) Have you been waiting for the "less gory" Passion to hit DVD? Well, here it comes as part of a 2-disc "definitive edition" that's scheduled to pass the collection plate on January 30.

To be fair, there's nothing even remotely new about all-new Special Editions, and it certainly looks like the impending DVD will be absolutely over-stuffed with supplemental features -- which helps to explain why the original Passion DVD was entirely bereft of extras. Fans of the film will no doubt delight in the FOUR separate audio commentaries (director, production, composer and theologian!), deleted scenes, production galleries, a pair of documentaries and some theatrical trailers. (Visit DVDActive for the cover art and full specs.)

The Passion Re-Cut will also be included on the new release, should you be among those who'd like to witness Christ's final hours without all that hardcore gore and terrible torture. I haven't done the math, but I'm guessing the violence-free version of The Passion should run about ... 49 minutes in length. (In reality the Re-Cut is only about eight minutes shorter.) And before you consider leaving me a nasty message for approaching this movie with such irreverence, have a look at my original review of the film. Yep, I liked it!

I was seriously wondering when this would happen. Weren't you? Sony Pictures' Screen Gems division is working on a film that continues the story of Jesus following the events in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Wait, didn't Jesus die at the end of that? Yes, but according to The Bible he returned a few days after dying on the cross, and it is this resurrection that will be the focus of Sony's film, tentatively called The Resurrection. The script is written by TV-movie scribe Lionel Chetwynd and is being produced by Reverend Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind books.

From what it looks like, Sony is going for the gold in no-brainer, easy-money film production. With little more than a release date picked out (Easter, of course) and a guarantee that Christian audiences who stormed theaters for The Passion will be back for Jesus' return, the studio is likely already counting its profits. Since this isn't a real sequel (the first was released by Newmarket Films), it is doubtful that James Caviezel will be back (and after being struck by lightning during production of the first, he should want to stay away). I also will not be surprised if Resurrection is filmed in English instead of the ancient languages spoken in Passion.

Well, I can say one thing for the film, which should go all the way and use the title The Resurrection of the Christ, and that is it should bring about less controversy. With less finger-pointing and much, much, much less violence, it should be important and enjoyable for its audience. I'll just be glad to not have that lump in the back of my dry throat I experienced while watching Passion.

Movie fans and Showtime subscribers looking for a change of pace are taking to -- and some, toking to -- the network's new comedy, Weeds. In it, Mary-Louise Parker of Saved! plays Nancy, a suburban housewife and mother of two who turns to dealing pot to survive after her husband suddenly dies and leaves her and the boys with next to nothing. In a recent episode, Parker is discussing the spike in demand with a teenage dealer, played by Justin Chatwin, who played Tom Cruise's son in War Of The Worlds.  "They've been playing Winged Migration for the midnight show all week, wiped me out," he explains. "Shit hasn't gone this fast since Passion of the Christ." Nancy, amazed, replies, "People got stoned for The Passion of the Christ? That's...disturbing." "It's not as disturbing as it is if you're not stoned," the teen answers, nonchalantly. "It's a straight up snuff film!"

Finally, a box office story with a non-whiny, perceptively critical angle: "The gaps between [the box office returns of] '05 and 2004 are evidence of a fundamental shift in the way Americans consume movies," writes Gabriel Snyder in Variety. Essentially, Snyder argues, audiences are showing moviemakers that there's no longer any such thing as a "safe bet". If a film like Passion of the Christ can skew an entire year's box office record, propelled almost entirely by non-regular moviegoers, yet even the final Star Wars film can't manage more than a couple of weeks in the number one slot, it's all a sign that "blockbusters can materialize out of nowhere, [and] sometimes "sure things" fail to click." So what do studios do? Well, for one thing, they can stop complaining about year-to-year grosses; Snyder points out that when you launch a film like Monster-in-Law exactly one year after the opening of a film like Troy, even if the girl-skewing romantic comedy does better than expected (and it did), it doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict that the middle-brow action epic is going to set a gross mark that is hard for a much smaller film to exceed. But, on the whole, "though on percentage terms the summer looks like it's very soft, the difference is fairly small in blockbuster terms."