ENTERTAINMENT 2004: MEL, MOORE EACH MAKE A STATEMENT 'PASSION,' '9/11' BOTH GAVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANTED.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

2004 may go down as the year in which independent producers glommed onto a truism the major studios have known for years: Give 'em what they want.

In the cases of ``The Passion of the Christ'' and ``Fahrenheit 9/11,'' however, the studios apparently did not believe these films would be what American moviegoers want.

Mel Gibson's bloody re-enactment of the Crucifixion of Jesus (in Latin and Aramaic with subtitles, no less) and Michael Moore's documentary skewering the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror each had wide swaths of the country buzzing weeks before their openings in a degree of anticipation usually seen only on the entertainment-obsessed coasts.

This was not the result of any well-oiled publicity machine. After their films were rejected by controversy-shy major studios, the two high-profile, media-savvy filmmakers simply generated a peer-pressure response among, for ``Passion,'' devout Christians, and for ``Fahrenheit,'' disenchanted Democrats. The payoffs were astounding.

``Passion'' opened on Ash Wednesday (this may have been the year to give up popcorn for Lent), and despite its R rating for violence, moviegoers rendered unto Mel $117.5 million in its first five days and more than $370 million through early December, placing the film ninth on the all-time box-office record chart. It appealed to church groups booking blocks of tickets as well as Internet users downloading it illegally. Piracy tracker BayTSP reported in May that nearly 37,000 unauthorized copies of the film were circulating.

The June opening-weekend take of ``Fahrenheit,'' $21.8 million, eclipsed Moore's own record of $21.6 million for the entire 30-week run of ``Bowling for Columbine'' in 2002. The winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, it was the first documentary to claim the No. 1 spot in the weekend box-office reports and went on to rack up about $120 million.

Both films received their share of negative publicity, and both benefited from it. Gibson's film was denounced for allegedly promoting anti-Semitism, and newspapers reported unexpected deaths and criminal confessions among moviegoers. Moore faced challenges from documentary purists, while conservatives scoffed at his theories and tried to block commercials of the film featuring President Bush, invoking election regulations. His Slacker Uprising Tour in the fall, aimed at registering young Kerry supporters, prompted complaints that he was buying votes with his gifts of processed noodles and new underwear.

Both are being pitched in the best-picture category for February's Academy Awards.

Americans discovered a new appetite for documentaries this year. ``Super Size Me,'' Morgan Spurlock's account of his 30-day McDonald's binge in which he packed on about 25 pounds and raised his doctor's eyebrows, kicked it into gear and briefly was the first documentary in the weekly box-office top 10.

Basking in the ``Fahrenheit'' afterglow was a flurry of political films - ``Bush's Brain,'' ``The Hunting of the President,' ``Going Upriver'' and ``The Control Room'' - sharing art-house and multiplex screen space with ``The Corporation,'' ``Riding Giants'' and ``NASCAR: The IMAX Experience.''

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James Caviezel stars in Mel Gibson's ``The Passion of the Christ.''