NEW YORK, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- Mel Gibson is building an audience for his movie "The Passion" by screening it for evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics and right-wing pundits.
A few Jewish commentators are also being shown the film that Gibson has poured $25 million of his money.
Seven months before its scheduled release on Ash Wednesday, the movie is being defended by the selected audiences as the most moving, reverential and violent depiction of Jesus' suffering and death ever put on screen, the New York Times reported.
Detractors, who have read a script but not seen the film, say it is a modern version of the medieval Passion plays that portrayed Jews as killing Christ.
A committee of Bible scholars, who read a version of the script, said the problem isn't that Gibson is anti-Semitic, but that his film could unintentionally incite anti-Semitic violence.
Gibson told the Times that the committee saw an outdated script.
