(FORTUNE Magazine) – How do you market a foreign-language film that, before it's even completed, has attracted the ire of everyone from the Anti-Defamation League to New York City's Union Theological Seminary? That's Mel Gibson's problem with The Passion, a graphic story of the last days of Christ. Although it's still in the cutting room, the film already is being attacked as anti-Semitic for reinforcing the notion of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus. For authenticity, Gibson, a fundamentalist Catholic who attends Latin Mass, scripted the movie in Latin and Aramaic (scholars say the languages should have included Greek; regardless, there are no plans for subtitles).

Icon Productions, Gibson's privately owned production company, spent $25 million on the film. Marketing the project will be in the hands of Icon outside the U.S. and a yet-to-be-named distributor in the States. Fox Filmed Entertainment, a subsidiary of News Corp., which is controlled by the right-leaning Rupert Murdoch, is Icon's usual U.S. distributor. But Fox has waived its right of first refusal and isn't planning to distribute The Passion. "Fox and Icon agreed that Fox will not be involved in the release of the film," says a Fox spokeswoman in L.A.

Hmmm. Alan Nierob, Gibson's publicist at Rogers & Cowan, says that Icon will start showing the film to other distributors in September and that it is looking for "someone smaller, who does niche marketing." A Paramount Pictures spokeswoman says that studio is "waiting to see it." The Hollywood buzz is that while the film may be spectacular, it's a marketing challenge. The movie hasn't been screen-tested before general audiences, and no release date has been set. But The Passion could hit theaters as early as Christmas. Count on big crowds attracted by the controversy or picketers outside the theaters. Or, predicts Nierob, "both." --Janet Guyon