corrente

USA Today:

Tickets at one movie theater screening Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" are being deemed decidedly unholy.

The number 666, which many Christians recognize as the "mark of the beast," is appearing on movie tickets for Gibson's film at a Georgia theater, drawing complaints from some moviegoers.

The machine that prints tickets assigned the number 666 as a prefix on all the tickets for the film, said Gary Smith, owner of the Movies at Berry Square in northwest Georgia. The 666 begins a series of numbers that are listed below the name of the movie, the date, time and price.

"It's from our computer and it's absolutely a coincidence," Smith said. "It has nothing to do with the film company or any vendor. It's completely in our computer."

In the Bible, the book of Revelation says 666 is the "number of the beast," usually interpreted as Satan or the Antichrist.

Then again, perhaps the Mark of the Best is entirely appropriate, seeing as how the movie is making a profit from religion, which I seem to recall that Jesus took exception to (back here).

UPDATE Alert reader Beth comments:

I don't normally put much stock in that sort of thing, but I can't help seeing the hand of God in all of this. Gibson has made a spectacle of Christ's suffering. When critics complain that all the blood obscures the deeper meaning of His ministry, Gibson's defenders argue that the essense of Christ is in his macho endurance of pain, not in the pussified platitudes that fill the Gospels. They transform His message into its own antithesis. Gibson's Passion is not about love but hate, not healing but torture, not forgiveness but revenge. I cannot think of another movie more worthy of the mark of the Beast than this bestial paean of torture and death.

Damn. Now I have to go see the thing to decide for myself. More money in Mel's pocket! I wonder how the popcorn sales are during this thing?