Movie vs. Man
Even before Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic tirade this summer, his upcoming film “Apocalypto” was a tough sell.
Graphically violent, subtitled and cast with unknown actors who speak in an obscure dialect, Gibson’s tale of a collapsing Mayan civilization was already outside Hollywood’s mainstream fare.
Then came his drunken-driving arrest on a coastal highway in July, overnight threatening to turn the Oscar-winning director from the film’s biggest asset into its biggest liability.
Starting with a Thanksgiving night special on Disney-owned ABC, distributor Walt Disney Studios has mounted a campaign aimed at shifting attention away from Gibson’s foibles – what the industry is calling “the Mel factor” – and onto his movie.
On Thursday, the night before “Apocalypto” hits theaters, he’s scheduled as a guest on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
Disney is positioning “Apocalypto” as a riveting action adventure. Its publicity materials, trailer and TV spots play up the film as a visceral, “heart-stopping” story of a man who escapes from a world on the brink of destruction to save himself, his pregnant wife and their child.
Nonetheless, it’s uncertain whether Gibson’s fans are ready to forgive him, let alone embrace an R-rated movie he has made on a topic unfamiliar to most audiences.
“I don’t envy Disney – they have an uphill battle,” says “Spider-Man” producer Laura Ziskin. “It looks like a hard sell to begin with. He’s the tool with which to market it, and he has a black mark against him.”
Gibson, 50, was arrested July 28. He reportedly made a number of profane and anti-Semitic remarks to officers, including the statement “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”
In the days following Gibson’s arrest, Cook called the director and his personal publicist, Alan Nierob, to assure them Disney still supported the film and would release it as planned.
The studio, however, was concerned whether Gibson would be able to deliver a finished print in time. (He had just begun editing and would be undergoing alcohol rehabilitation.)
Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook notes that Gibson defied dismal predictions once before by turning “The Passion of the Christ” into a global blockbuster.
“The public is smart enough to differentiate what happens in someone’s personal life and their professional life,” Cook says.
“And, while we knew the marketing mountains we’d have to go up, you realize the movie is in the hands of someone who has conquered all these obstacles before and succeeded in an extraordinary way.”
As with “Passion,” which contained brutal scenes of Christ’s torture at the hands of Roman soldiers, there are scenes of bloody violence in “Apocalypto” – in this case, human sacrifices in which heads roll – that are sure to make audiences squirm in their seats.
Disney spokesman Dennis Rice said the violence is “no more so than in any R-rated picture. For some, they will be fine with it. For others, it may not be exactly their cup of tea.
“But there hasn’t been one person who has said this isn’t a powerful movie and that once again, ‘Mel has done it.’ “
As an Anglo telling a Maya story with a largely non-Anglo cast and crew, Gibson is under pressure to deliver a film that doesn’t insult Maya culture or divert too drastically from historical facts.
Ernie Gomez, development director at the Latino Community Development Agency in Oklahoma City, says the scenes of human sacrifice accurately reflect what he knows about Maya culture.
“It’s pretty graphic in terms of the killings,” Gomez says, “but you know that is part of our culture.”