The Passion Of The Christ continued its surging run in Latin America through FoxInternational at the weekend as it added $9m for a $25m running total inthe region.

The picture finished top in all its markets and set new recordsfor the distributor in all its opening Latin American markets.

It opened on $788,454 on 127 screens in Argentina for theindustry's third biggest of all time, while Venezuela produced $405,243 from 78for the biggest industry bow ever.

Passionopened on $108,912 from 10 in Bolivia for the second biggest industry mark of alltime, $94,065 from 14 in the Dominican Republic for the second biggest industrybow and $44,672 from seven in Uruguay for the fifth biggest industry bow of alltime there.

Strong holdovers added $1.8m in Brazil for a 4% rise and $4.8mcumulative total. The rise meant this was Fox's biggest weekend of all time inthe market and the second biggest industry weekend ever.

In Mexico Passion added $3.3m and fell 34% for a superb $11.2m running total andPeru added $271,683 and fell 45% for Fox's biggest ever second weekend and theindustry's third biggest second weekend of all time.

In Colombia it added $593,086 and fell 15% for $1.8m while Chileadded $495,000 and fell 30% for $1.6m.

Ecuador fell 50% and added $57,770 for $225,536. Executivesbelieve weaker than expected scores here are attributable to piracy, withreports of church screenings of illegal copies.

Passion grossed$648,177 in Central America to raise its running total there to $2.1m (thisfigure is included in the Latin American totals).

Taiwan opened top on $364,287 from 41 screens.

Next weekend's openings are scheduled for the Philippines on Mar31, Hong Kong and Singapore on Apr 1 and Korea and Thailand a day later.