Can the actor once again win over audiences amid several career haunting misteps?
Will Mel Gibson Return to form this year? The 54-year old actor will hit theaters this weekend with his first starring role in eight years in the “The Edge of Darkness”.
The studios behind Gibson’s venture, an $80 million dollar budgeted silver screen adaptation of a popular BBC miniseries, are down-on-their-knees hopeful that the screen legend can override the tidal wave of criticism that has swarmed the actor through two PR-nightmareous high profile, highly negative thoroughly discussed before-our-eyes stints that have more-than-soured his mega superstardom appeal before a once plentiful and worshiping Mel Gibson fan base.
Studios are praying the public will forgive and forget the police mugshot of Mel Gibson that recalls a career more-than-a-blip moment of drunken anti-semetic behavior that found itself plastered across front pages and populating entertainment show headlines. Studios are praying that the public will forget the paparazzi photos of Gibson caught cheating on his wife (he has eight kids) with a beautiful babe on a malibu beach, surfboard tucked under his arm and an auora of utter disregard.
Gibson stars as homicide detective Thomas Craven while in the midst of an investigation into the death of his activist daughter, uncovers her secret life, and a corporate cover-up that involves government efforts to extracate the evidence.
Gibson had once thrilled moviegoers with a string of hits that ranged from revolutionary war hero The Patriot, to vengeful father in Ransom, to military hero in We Were Soldiers. Gibson is known for reaching career soaring heights in all forms of the film business; be it directing (he won an Oscar for Braveheart) or horror (Signs pulled in well over 200 million).
All told, Mel Gibson has walloped up a whopping ten films that have grossed over the 100 million mark, putting him at number eight on a recent list of actors with the most movies to gross over $100,000.
Perhaps Mel Gibson’s eight year sabbatical was just a simple fact – he didn’t need to work, really anymore.
The Passion of the Christ, the Mel-Gibson produced epic about Jesus Christ netted him a fortune worth well over 600 million, after the actor struck a wise deal to forgo his salary and take a net percentage of the grosses of a film that grossed hundreds of millions worldwide. The receipts from passion turned Mel Gibson into a billionaire with $100 million dollars worth of property, including a $15 million dollar mansion on the island of Fiji and a ranch near Samara, Costa Rica worth $26 million. His production company also raked in the dough, netting 75 million last year.
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It’s been four years since Mel Gibson was arrested on a fateful Friday night, cell in hand, wandering into a police station with a .12 percent blood alcohol level, and a mugshot that would see itself first published on TMZ, and then rapidly, virally-rapidly, spread across gossip sites and finally become the topic of heated debate on talking head networks like Fox News. His famous, memorable tirade would haunt Mel Gibson in the years ahead, and trigger a movie sabattical from an industry that he seemed to be dominating at the time.
“F— Jews…The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” he said, on a night Mel Gibson seemed to be a shattered caricature of his calm, collected A-List movie hero self. He threatened an officer, in yelled in a now familiar rant caught on tape and played before the masses in all media mediums. I “own malibu” and “Im going to f— you!”. He called a female officer ’sugar tits” on his way into jail.
On August first, back in 2006, he isssued the following statement:
“There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks of expresses any kind of anti-semetic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said. It was Barbara Walters who said herself, “I don’t think I want to see any more Mel Gibson movies,” on The View next day, as the rumors that he was an anti-semetic, put forth in profiles in the New York TImes Magazine “Im a holocaust” Denier, he said, were confirmed.
A lot of people lost a great deal of respect for Mel Gibson. And many were certain the impact on his career had reached crisis level. ABC cancelled his miniseries that was set against the backdrop of the holocaust. His directorial followup to The Passion of the Christ, Apocolypto could kiss farewell to any Oscar hopes.
The interest in Gibson’s bizarre drunken rant shared so much in common with Britney Spears’ event-destruction meltdown, it seemed ironic when the twin PR disaster-bearing-stars went on a vacation together in Malibu. Cameras caught them vacationing together in a will-the-public-finally-forgive us kind of way.
And did he learn from his mistakes? According to RadarOnline, no. Not really. The gossip buzzing website last year reported on a surprising congregational appearance Gibson gave before fellow churchgoers at his Holy Family Chapel in Agoura Hills, California. “Mel’s completely lost it,” a source told RadarOnline.com. “[His] holier than thou world is falling apart around him — all these years he’s been preaching the good holy word, and now that the wizard’s curtain has been pulled back, we find that Mel hasn’t been practicing what he preaches.”
“In front of two priests and a visiting bishop,” the website said, Gibson made a huge scene when he “paced back and forth, furiously telling the congregation that he would not stand by and be judged and scrutinized… Mel got up on his stage — the altar — and went off. He tried to intimidate the parishioners by staring at everyone with his angry eyes. Mel even threatened to shut down the church if people kept gossiping about him.”
He hasn’t learned, if you believe everything written on gossip sites.
But Mel champions will note that he’s racked up quite a few honorable mentions over the years, including a spot in the top five of Parade Magazine’s List of Most generous stars, donating a better-than-brangelina $9.8 million dollars according to public records in 2007. And Gibson was most recently spotted busily manning phone lines before tens of millions of viewers on the all star 130-celeb-studded telethon to help the victims of Haiti, with proceeds going to places like Oxfam America.
The family: Gibson with his wife Robyn in 1999 and their children (back row) William, Hannah and Christian, (front row) Christian’s twin Milo, and Louis; Tom was yet to be born
His latest foray into public discussion disaster was a louder-than-life headline ascent that swirled around his alleged affairs and looming divorce to longtime wife Robyn, along with the recent announdement of an eighth child on the way with a new girlfriend. He’d been wed to Robyn for 28 years but questions arose about his marriage fidelity.
Mel’s publicist said talk of infidelity was “100 per cent untrue”. …
But cameras caught Gibson on the beach frolicking around with an unidentified woman.
To keep discussions on the down low, the couple did not appear in an L.A. county courthouse but instead opted for a private judge to hear them out, away from all the publicity and attention. A discussion the public would not likely to ignore if given the chance.
His divorce signaled one of the biggest potential settlements in history between husband and wife. The only other divorces as big being the Tiger Woods-Elin Nordegren settlement and Michael Jordan, who settled with his wife Juanita for $168 million dollars back in 2006. Mel’s wife Robin is entitled to half of Mel’s earnings, about 1 billion dollars.
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Gibson is completely aware of using the talk-show-circuit to his benefit in the wake of embarassing mishaps. He’s used it after the anti-semetic tirade and just last year.
A relaxed and clean-shaven Mel Gibson dressed up in jeans, a white shirt and a blue jacket showed up to answer questions about his relationship with his russian model girlfriend and confirm her pregancy during his 21st guest appearance on NBC’s Tonight Show.
Gibson took the blame for the divorce, saying: “My wife and I, our marriage ended three years ago and we’ve been separated ever since then… These things happen. It’s unfortunate, it’s sad, but you know she is an admirable woman – we still got kids together. We’re friends.” When Leno pressed Gibson by asking, “So what happened?” Gibson replied, “Look. When it’s all said and done, I did a pretty good hatchet job on my marriage myself. I’m to blame. If you’re inclined to judge, put it here.”
Leno then joked with Gibson about his dating a younger woman. “What, is she 17, 18?” Mel replied that Oksana was almost 40 and “now I am going to have two women mad at me!”
Leno then said, “The rumor I have heard is that you guys are going to have a child?”
Gibson then confirmed, “This is true. We’re gonna have a child.”
Leno joked, “So that will make 29? ” Gibson responded, “Well, actually eight. I guess I’m Octo-Mel.”
Perhaps Gibson learned a lesson or two about defeating media backlash. Gibson had been quite steadforth about his relationship with Oksana from the onset, appearing with his increasingly showing pregnant girlfriend on the red carpet dozens of times. In fact, she even released an album single in the weeks after the storm entitled ‘Say My Name.” That’s about as blunt as you can put it. Mel and his new sweetheart didn’t plan to keep their relationship hush hush. In fact, they wanted the media, the public to know Mel wasn’t with a mystery women. Her name was Oksana Grigorieva, and she was not the other women in the middle of an unravelling $900 million divorce. The press it ate it up. Media organizations soon gushed upon the announcement of Oksana giving birth to Mel’s eighth child (a girl) back in November, and had nearly entirely dropped from headlines the ugly divorce unraveling between himself and his wife of 28 years.
Mel proved himself quite the spinster the second time around.
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As mentioned before, perhaps Mel Gibson is at a point in his career where he isn’t banking his every move on bringing in the next hollywood box office home run.
Unlike his movie star cohorts like Sylvester Stallone who brought back Rambo and Rocky for more action, Gibson hasn’t shown an interest in resurrecting some of the film characters that made him famous.
He just passed on the script for a fourth Mad Max Film.
And he disappointed Warner Brothers moguls by rejecting a fifth installment of the Lethal Weapons films. Richard Donner, who directed the first four films in the franchise, publically criticized what he called Gibson’s ’snubbing’ of the Lethal Weapon 5 script. “Mel turned it down. I would like to think that Mel turned it down because I wasn’t involved. Knowing Mel, I would like to think that. Would that be the kind of thing he does? It sure would be,” Donner said. “It’s too bad, actually, because Channing Gibson, who wrote the fourth one, and Mike Riva, a designer on three of them, had an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie. But we weren’t given the opportunity and I think maybe I could have convinced Mel to do it. But Warners chose to go with (producer) Joel Silver… the project is pretty much dead in the water unless someone had the sense to come to me.”
Gibson has made few comments about his slate of upcoming films, only that he’s considering a role in the film “Vikings” with Leonardo DiCaprio. If he does take on the role, he said, “I want a Viking to scare you. I don’t want a viking to say, in a heavy Brooklyn accent, ‘I’m going to die with this sword in my hand.’ It just pulls the rug out from under you.”
Perhaps he’s taking a cautious stance, a wait-and-see look first on how audiences view his latest foray on the big screen. Or perhaps the one billion dollar movie legend is living in semi-retirement right now.
The Edge of Darkness Opens January 29 in wide Release
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The Patriot co-starring a then unknown Heath Ledger made $113 million at the box office
Signs- The M. Night Shalyman horror flick showed plenty of signs of life at the box office, scaring up $227.9 million in receipts.
The four Lethal Weapon films have grossed a total of almost $500 million.
Ransom took in 136.4 million at the box office
Braveheart - The film made $75 million at the box office, but also scored Gibson Best Director and Best Picture Oscars
We Were Soldiers – Mel Gibson’s soldier movie epic grossed about 78 million domestically, but when international receipts were counted, the film gross totalled $114 million
What Woman Want – The 1999 comedy that saw Mel Gibson find himself capable of hearing women’s thoughts grossed 175 million
Maverick – Mel Gibson’s remake of the western tv show lassoed in over 100 million at the box office
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