Gibson Shunned

Mel Gibson must be feeling a little put out, if the latest issue of Newsweek is to be believed. According to the magazine, none of the major studios will come within spitting distance of his new film, controversial Christ story, The Passion. "It's not worth the aggravation," a studio head reportedly told the magazine. "Even if it makes money, it's not going to be Titanic." Without sufficient financial incentive (after all, how commercially successful can a film shot entirely in Aramaic and Latin really be?) studios are apparently unwilling to brave the inevitable barrage of complaints, hate mail and (possibly) death threats from pressure groups and far right fanatics. Take Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ for example. The film took peanuts at the box office and gave Universal the kind of grief no studio would willingly experience. "There were millions of letters written and 25,000 people marched on Universal," a former studio executive told Newsweek. "There were death threats against my chairman, myself and Marty Scorsese. There was security in our lives for years." You can kind of see why they might be a touch hesitant to open the flood gates once again. Icon has so far neglected to actively seek distribution for the film, preferring to see which companies show interest - something which, it would appear, has yet to happen. All is not lost though as, if Icon choose not to distribute the film themselves, there are other options. A few independent distributors have expressed an interest and the current frontrunner is thought to be Newmarket - who brought us the rather excellent Memento. Lion's Gate and Miramax are also said to be circling but given Disney's dim view of controversy, the second coming will be a more likely occurrence than Miramax agreeing to pick up the tab.