After many years where accusations of anti-semitism have floated around him, it appears Mel Gibson wants to try and rehabilitate his image and say he’s a friend of the Jews, as Variety reports he’s teaming up with Warner Bros to make a movie about Jewish hero, Judah Maccabee.
Gibson is teaming with Showgirls scribe Joe Eszterhas to develop the movie, with Mel also having first option to direct. There’s no news on whether he’s also thinking of starring. Presumably he feels the story is good and that this might help rehabilitate his image after criticism of his treatment of Jews in Passion Of The Christ and several anti-semitic comments he’s made, but he’s got a huge uphill battle ahead of him. Indeed, THR reports some people are already coming out against the movie.
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti Defamation League, says “Judah Maccabee deserves better. He is a hero of the Jewish people and a universal hero in the struggle for religious liberty. It would be a travesty to have his story told by one who has no respect and sensitivity for other peoples religious views.” Foxman was also vocal against the treatment of Jews in Gibson’s Passion of The Christ. Rabbi Marvin Heir, founder and dean of Los Angeles’s Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance, adds “Warner Bros. is making a terrible mistake. Most of the people that are going to come to a film about Judah Maccabee are the Jewish community. Surely they know the Jewish communities are not going to come to this film.”
However other than Gibson, the idea of making Judah Maccabee movie is a decent one. In the second century BC, he and his father and brother led a revolt against the Greek-Syrian armies that had conquered Judea. Hanukkah is the celebration of the restoration of Jewish worship at temple in Jersusalem after Maccabees drove out the invaders and their Pagan statuary.
To be honest, I can’t see Warner going ahead with the film, both due to Gibson’s involvement and commercial concerns. Unless he creates a masterpiece, having Mel directing would likely just set off a firestorm of controversy, with everyone ready to pounce and criticise everything about the film.