Word broke last month that Mel Gibson had Vikings on his mind, and was planning a Norse-themed project that would star Leonardo DiCaprio. Now, at an Edge of Darkness press conference, Gibbo has let slip a few more details. From anyone else, they'd sound mental. But from the director of The Passion of the Christ (spoken languages Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew) and Apocalypto (Yucatec Mayan), they're really no surprise at all.
"I think it's going to be in the English that would have been spoken back then, and Old Norse," says Gibson. "Whatever the 9th century had to offer. I'm going to give you real."
Gibson says that the "big, wacky, epic" Vikings idea is one of the first he ever had, when he was a sixteen year old dreaming of being a filmmaker. He didn't reveal anything about the potential plot (or what he was doing recently scouting locations in Vera Cruz), but he's perfectly clear about the approach he's taking. "I want a viking to scare you," he explains. "I want to see somebody who I have never seen before speaking low, guttural German and scaring the living shit out of me. What would that have been like?"
We can't wait to find out. William Monahan (The Departed) is writing the script, and Variety reported before Christmas that shooting is pencilled in for the autumn of this year.
And note "somebody I've never seen before". Unknowns for the Vikings then, putting Leo in the Old English camp. Looks like he's got some linguistics homework beckoning. Hwæt!