There’s something unbelievable going on in Tinseltown: it’s a very quiet, slow-burning, Mel Gibson comeback. After popping up in Cannes this month to promote his revenge flick Blood Father (sounds excruciating), and making a handful of public appearances over the last year at premieres (namely the Mad Max: Fury Road premiere last year), the volatile and probably mentally unstable Gibson’s name is beginning to just sort of creep back into the pop culture news stream. I’m calling it now, the guy will be back on a regular basis before long.
Shane Black has been a busy man too, making the rounds to promote The Nice Guys – which, go see it please – and last week at Uproxx he made a throwaway comment about Robert Downey Jr. himself possibly wanting Mel Gibson to direct Iron Man 4, which RDJ has said he’s on board to make. It was a blip in an extensive interview, but still worth noting:
*Would you do another Iron Man? Downey seems to have changed his position and is open to another.
I think he wants Mel Gibson to direct it.
*Really? Downey has been supportive of Gibson.
And for good reason. Mel was great to him. Mel’s been really nice to a lot of people, including me. I’ll go on record saying I don’t believe anyone should be held accountable in any way for something they say while they are drunk. It’s not who they are. I know this because I’ve said horrible things to people and made them feel bad. And it wasn’t who I was, I was just drunk. Mel’s a great guy and I understand his new directing project is actually quite interesting. So, whatever. If you say something sober it’s one thing. If you’re drunk, you’re going to deliberately be belligerent just to piss people off. You know the effect you’re having and you don’t care. Yeah, one of these days, maybe Downey will do another one. I’d love to work with Robert again.
Again, just a throwaway line, but rumor-worthy and probably never going to happen. Handing a nutcase like Mel Gibson the keys to one of Disney’s biggest franchises in a string of insurmountably dominant franchise films would be totally insane. And yeah, Black says don’t blame the guy because he was drunk and people say bad shit when their drunk, but you can’t convince me those insane rants we’ve heard either first or secondhand from Gibson aren’t his true feelings on some very touchy issues.
Gibson is anti-semitic and definitely not the greatest guy, no matter how his previous transgressions are spun as alcoholism run amok. I’m sure he’s a great guy to his friends, and he and RDJ have probably been close for a while – they did star in Air America ages ago and they probably shared some late nights together before RDJ got his act together. But let’s just tap the brakes on Gibson returning to the director’s chair for an Iron Man movie, of all things.
