There was a post-“Passion” pile of scripts with $20 million-plus offers for Gibson’s acting services. That charge never really had much traction, said sources within Gibson’s agency, ICM.
Nevertheless, the fact that more than one studio bid for the project shows Gibson’s viability and makes laughable last year’s prediction by the New York Times that Gibson would be blackballed by Jewish executives after the “Passion” controversy. And because “Apocalypto” is not a religious pic, there’s no guarantee of an encore turnout of the church groups and hardcore Catholics who made “The Passion of the Christ” a nearly $1 billion box office/DVD bonanza.Īt least three studios passed on the project before Disney bought it. Since Gibson’s bankrolling his pic and will sell foreign himself, studios were offered only a rent-a-system deal, such as George Lucas had with 20th Century Fox for his last three “Star Wars” films. And it likely will carry an R rating, unless Gibson tempers the onscreen depiction of violent scenes he wrote in his script. Set 500 years ago, pic will be filmed in an obscure Mayan dialect, presumably with the same kind of subtitles Gibson reluctantly added to “The Passion of the Christ.” It will star a neophyte cast indigenous to the region of Mexico where Gibson will shoot in October.
“Apocalypto” hardly fits the traditional definition of a summer film.
0 kommentar(er)
