Three and a half years. That’s seems to be the official amount of time you have to disappear from the public eye after making drunken anti-semitic comments and calling a cop sugar-tits while she’s trying to arrest you for DWI. Since his infamous July 2006 run-in with the police, Mel Gibson has been notable by his absence, but he’s now decided enough time has passed and he’s allowed to make movies again.
While he’s already completed Edge Of Darkness, which will be his first on-screen lead role since Signs in 2002, and the Jodie Foster directed The Beaver, it looks like he’s now thinking of going back the behind-the-camera again as well. Variety reports that Gibson will direct an as yet untitled Viking drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio, with William Monahan handling the screenplay. The writer already has a relationship with both men, having scripted DiCaprio’s The Departed and Body of Lies, and Gibson’s upcoming Edge Of Darkness.
While all three have confirmed their involvement, there’s no news on the plot or anything else for the film, other that that it’s likely to be as unsparing as the likes of Braveheart, The Passion Of The Christ and Apocalypto, and that DiCaprio will play a viking. Apparently he’s been fascinated by their culture for years. Hmm, we can’t quite see Leo as a raping and pillaging norseman, but perhaps he’ll be the nice eco-friendly viking who suggests that maybe they should be a bit more peacable and get in touch with their feelings, rather than going on raiding parties.
At the moment shooting is slated to begin next autumn, although as DiCaprio always like to keep endless movies in development at any one time, there’s no guarantee of exactly when (if ever) this one will actually get made.