mel gibson went out of his way to make what he thought was the definitive movie. got into some hot water from the jewish community over allegations of anti-semitism. were you worried about that? >> we consulted with rabbis and in particular with the anti-defamation league, just to understand the sensitivities and what could we do while keeping to the gospels, but being sensitive to the jewish faith. jesus and the disciples were all jewish. there were no christians, jews, and romans. it was simply the jewish people and the romans. >> reporter: even before the critics have weighed in, the film has a built-in audience. >> your hunger for righteousness will be filled. >> if you didn't know jesus and you came to this movie for the first time, i think you would get a beautiful understanding of what he came to do. >> blessed are the pure in heart. for they shall see god. >> we tried to tell the movie as a thriller to create the tension and the drama, to make it compelling. >> you are charged with blasphemy. >> reporter: clearly a labor of love for them. now also poised t

. >> and you worked closely with mel gibson, box office receipts, this is huge amounts of money. look at for example the bible, the series of which the son of god is the base for this movie coming out. 13.1 million viewers. a record at the history channel. they never had numbers like that. look at "duck dynasty." family oriented show. they have been as high as $14 million at times. why? >> first of all, it is not just that you throw up jesus and there is a blockbuster, remember after "passion of christ" there were lots of films that tried to make a quick buck and failed. this is the formula here. you have to have a great production, and it has to be deeply faith-driven. we're going to have some coming up, for example, "noah," with russell crowe. we'll see how it does. this is the formula, really good production and faith-driven. >> paul, you work with the hollywood reporter, out there with all the hollywood liberals, don't take it personally. but seriously, obviously, there is something to this. but you always still kind of get the lowest common demoninator, your reaction? >> wel

put up some of these numbers and get a look at how that turned out for mel gibson.n, you compare that to the hangover at 207, so it turns out that these kind of themes can do very well at the box office, joe. tell us about the money side of this. why would hollywood be so interested in these pictures? >> passion of the profit, martha. martha: that kind of profit. >> you mentioned 370 million before, if you include international receipts, passion of the christ made over $600 million. in the case of "son of god," that averaged about 11.5 million people watching per night. martha: roe ma downey are the couple behind this big movie. >> what's 11.5 million, what does that amount to? breaking bad, which apparently everybody watched, only 10 million watched that series finale. so there is such an appetite for this, and i'll throw one more number out at you, 77% of americans -- according to gallup -- identify themselves as christian in some way, protestant or catholic. that's well over 200 million people. so why not tap into that audience more? but if somebody isn't getting

steven spielberg, oprah winfrey and kate winslet, mel gibson, among others.y rio de janeiro is the place to be. >> this place is hot, sexy and filled with beautiful people. some stars who have been sighted here recently, penelope cruz and her husband have been seen there recently. seen her recently. girard butler. and madonna. >> this is from the hit abc show "the girls." >> now up for rent for $10,000 a month. you can hang out here for a week. not sure about that price. on a private three-acre estate with 300 feet of a private beach. also a five-story tower. 24 don't know, in case enemies approach? what do you need a tower for? >> stay way from the paparazzi. there is one thing missing and we'll tell you about that when we come back. you want to sing a little song, marci, you know the one. >> i don't want to scare anyone ♪ if everybody had an ocean across the usa ♪ my singing ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >>> you and me on the beach in about 30 more years. welcome back. we continue to celebrate all things sunny and warm on this beach day here on "world news now." >> it's also

be careful mel gibson, it's a trap. [ laughter and applause ] a new study has found that 30% of womenrystal meth say weight loss was a key factor in taking the drug. [ laughter ] though to be fair, most of that weight loss comes from the teeth. [ laughter and applause ] so, balance the choice. you're losing weight. and finally, two chinese men have been arrested for injuring director michael bay while filming, "transformers 4." as punishment, the men are being forced to star in "transformers 4." [ laughter ] ladies and gentlemen, the 8g band with fred armisen! [ cheers and applause ] ♪ >> seth: how are you fred, are you well? >> fred: great, great. >> seth: great, you look great. >> fred: thank you. >> seth: very exciting. "portlandia," premiers tonight. [ laughter and applause ] 10:00 on ifc. >> fred: yeah. >> seth: fred, you are so busy. you're doing this show. you've got "portlandia." sometimes it feels like you're things up when i ask you questions. but i overheard you telling someone that last night you made a citizens arrest? >> fred: i did. [ laughter ] i did. i was very, very

outside of mel gibson the passion haven't been too many.this week when the film "son of god" is released. >> our father in heaven feeds the birds of the air. how much more will he give to you. [gasps] >> put god first and everything else will follow. you hunger for righteousness, you will be filled. >> with us now the man who produced that film mark burnett. i have a book "killing jesus" we have a film that will be out easter season next year. my book is just history. jesus being caught up in tremendous power struggle between the romans and people in judeo. you and your wife row that downing roma downing say to the movie goer is he god. >> absolutely. our movie starts at revelation john old man looking back. first words we will hear on the movie screens friday when it comes out in the beginning was the word. the word was with god and the word was god. and we know that the word was gee, you can transpose that and say jesus is god. >> why are you doing that? you can do it another way. you could do it another way. can you say look, but you are

we think of mel gibson. he manages to apologize in ways where he offends people more. prince harry when he wore his nazi regalia managed to qualify his apology in a way that made things worse. mickey aronson refuses to go public for carnival. those guys don't correct the problem. tim armstrong is trying. there are better ways to do it. take a look at jim burke, on the tylenol recall, or take a look at massive recalls at mattel more recently where they were handled beautifully by bob eckert. >> is it always better to always come out and say i'm sorry, or are there times when it is best to keep your mouth shut? >> it's never too late to say you're sorry. you have to do it carefully. the big disaster in bopal where thousands of people were killed, the ceo went, said i'm responsible, how can i help and the indian authorities immediately stopped the investigation and said great, you're responsible. they didn't operate it. sometimes an apology if it's careless can backfire. it has to be authentic. you have to be able to show you mean it. some kind of contrition. also, make s

mel gibson "temptation of christ" and draws such hot fe feelings out in people.ough that without -- you have to separate a little bit. you have to concentrate on what you're about to do. obviously now i can see with the feedback and the session of "the bible" and now with "son of god," we can see that there's a lot of people being touched by this story and the thing is, this is -- the last time that the whole life of jesus was on screen was 50 years ago. >> hard to believe. >> "the greatest story ever told" so there's a lot of people out there and a lot of kids especially. they don't know exactly who jesus was, so this is actually a tool that can teach those kids about why -- what jesus was and who he was and why the bible was the most important book. >> you got a lot of range. you also played a doctor in "revenge." >> it's all in the healing field. all in the healing field. >> well, this movie is really going to be something. i'm sure it's going to touch a lot of people. thank you for coming in today. song son hits theaters february 28th and coming up, time for