Mel Gibson has had success in diversity as very few in Hollywood ever had. From the religious themed “The Passion of the Christ“, which shut everyone up pretty damn good when they said it was a stupid idea taking in over $600 million worldwide, to Braveheart which netted him some Oscars, to the wacky action star of Mad Max and the LeaLethalthal Weapon series. Directing, writing and acting… Mel has succeeded in everything he’s done so far.
Apparently Mel Gibson is ready to make his return to writing and directing with his new project Apocalypto… and once again it’s a project he’s going to finance himself. The good folks over at TimeOut give us this:
Set in an ancient civilisation some 3,000 years ago, the film will apparently be full of action and violence, but will have no religious theme this time around. Aside from that, little is known of the project, apart from the fact that it will probably net the writer director a tidy sum of money. The reason being that, much like the lucrative deal he struck with Newmarket Films for ‘The Passion of the Christ’, Gibson will finance the project himself, with Disney distributing for a fee.
The ‘Braveheart’ director has already begun preproduction and scouted locations for ‘Apocalypto’, with a release planned for summer 2006.
I don’t know how that “release in summer of 2006” part can be true. They haven’t started shooting yet or even cast this thing and it’s going to be released in theatres in 1 year? I doubt it.
Aside from that, I think this is GREAT news. The project already sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun… and I don’t even really know anything about it yet other than “will apparently be full of action and violence”. Isn’t it sad that this is all I need to know to get excited about a film? :)
