Is it possible you meant "The Passion of the Christ"? "The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)" barely broke even at the U.S. box office (a bit over $7M according to IMDB) and is not rated particularly high. "The Passion of the Christ" was "adopted" by all sorts of religious groups who persuaded their "customers" to go see it.
No, I meant "Last Temptation". Maybe it didn't play as well nationwide as I thought, but I heard so many stories of those who went to see it just because of the controversy, I thought it did better than it really did. I do know that it did better than it should have, which speaks to my point (and LKeller's too) of negative publicity helping to promote. I'm not sure "Passion" benefited from the negative publicity it received...I believe that its revenue came more from positive publicity, from evangelical churches right up to the Pope.