Mel Gibson Eyes Retirement

Mel Gibson will direct the movie Viking starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Vikings have held a lifelong fascination for Gibson, who has wanted to make a movie about them for years. About Viking Gibson said, "It was the first movie I ever thought about making... I saw it in my mind back when I was teenager. Seriously, it's the first movie I wanted to make. And I think it will be the last film I direct. It's the thing I have been going toward, in a way, since I was young, and I think when it's done I may be finished." ¹ Of course, what that means is subject to interpretation. Will he continue his involvement in filmmaking as an actor or in an other-than-director capacity? Or will he retire and enjoy his new life with Oksana Grigorieva, the Russian musician with whom he has fathered his eighth child, daughter Lucia (b. 30-Oct-2009).

With four movies under his directing belt (The Man Without a Face, Braveheart (for which he won the Best Director Oscar), The Passion of the Christ, and Apocalypto), and a screenplay in the works by Bill Monahan, who penned The Departed as well as Gibson's latest film, Edge of Darkness, Viking could be an appropriate swan song to his directing career and further improve his still somewhat tarnished image.

On July 28, 2006, Mel Gibson seemed doomed to early retirement when he spewed anti-Semitic remarks when arrested for a DWI. It seems Mel is an angry drunk and a bigot. With counseling and a public service announcement behind him, his film Apocalypto was well received. However, his reputation as a faithful Catholic husband and father was tarnished when his wife of nearly 30 years filed for divorce and it came out that he was expecting a child out of wedlock with his mistress. So he's supposedly a devout Catholic who even built his own church, but ignores several of the Commandments when it suits him? Hmmm.

Of course, in a world where Charlie Sheen can repeatedly screw up by acting violently in two marriages, needing rehab more than once, using the services of call girls, and going on drunken binges while keeping his job on Two and a Half Men, then Mel Gibson still has enough of his reputation intact to continue his career in Hollywood. The level may fall short of his peak, but don't count Mel Gibson out - he still has a lot of clout.

Sources:

(1) http://www.newsoxy.com/mel-gibson/last-movie-12779.html

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_272630857.shtml