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Mel Gibson To Make Movie about the Maccabees

The Los Angeles Times reports that Mel Gibson will be making a movie about the Jewish hero who is memorialized every year during Hanukkah– Judas Maccabeus. Here’s a bit from the article:

Gibson’s Icon Productions has closed the producing deal with Warner Bros., and Joe Eszterhas will write the screenplay. Gibson’s camp said the filmmaker will decide if he’s directing after the script is done and that he has not ruled out the possibility that he could act in the film.

Maccabee, his four brothers and his father led the Jewish revolt against the Greek-Syrian armies. The role of his father, the priest Mattathias, might be a logical one for the 55-year-old Gibson if he does opt to appear in the film.

Maccabee is a figure who has fascinated Gibson for years, and at one point he considered this as a follow-up project to “The Passion of the Christ” in 2004. Gibson’s camp describes the film in terms that resonate with past Gibson projects, such as “Braveheart” or Roland Emmerich’s “The Patriot.”

History and religion are career cornerstones for Gibson the filmmaker. He wrote, produced and directed “The Passion of the Christ,” which became a global sensation and, with $612 million in worldwide box office, stands as the highest -grossing R-rated film of all time. The movie also set off an intense international debate as viewers walked away from the movie with very different messages.

Gibson’s views on religion and politics made him a firebrand figure, but his standing in Hollywood was shaken by more personal controversy. A DUI arrest in the summer of 2006 became a life-changing calamity after anti-Semitic remarks he made while in custody were reported across the planet. Gibson apologized and called it “a moment of insanity” and a “public humiliation on a global scale.”

Read the rest here.

4 Comments

  • yankeegospelgirl

    Interesting. Incidentally, don’t shoot me, but I thought _The Passion_ could have been better. I mean it was powerful and has some brilliant moments, but come on… 2 minutes for the resurrection? The scourging scene alone was like five times as long! Which is completely inaccurate anyway, as some others have already pointed out.

  • Don Johnson

    The Passion was at least 80% straight from a Catholic mystic (I forget the name) and about 10% Bible and 10% Mel but he made it so that only those who know the mystic’s story will recognize it in the movie. For others that do not know it, it just passes by as plausible possible events to make the movie long enough. This is why Gibson went to prots asking for support, he knew Catholics would like it already.

  • Froike

    Call me a sap…but we Jews believe that everyone has the ability to change for the better and do “Tshuvah”, penance to atone for and expiate our sins.
    Although I’ve read and heard that Mr. Gibson’s father is indeed an Anti Semite and probable holocaust denier, I still think that Mel Gibson could possibly follow a different path.
    It’s hard to imagine any Christian being Anti Semitic…After all, wasn’t Rabbi Jesus a Jew?
    The original Christians were a sect of Jews that believed in jesus as the Moshiach. From my understanding, they practiced Judaism and observed the mitzvot. It wasn’t until later years that some of the apostles made changes in the religion which diverted Christians farther away from its Jewish Roots. Of course, by the time of Constantine, the Church became “Romanized” and most vesitges of Judaism were erased.
    In any case, I’m not so quick to condemn Mel Gibson….he’s suffered enough for his comments. I say, let him make the movie….this may be a chance for him to redeem himself?

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