Agreed. Mel Gibson risked his own money and essentially wrote off his future career as a prominent mainstream actor to make
The Passion of the Christ. Imagine if John Wayne, Clark Gable, or Gary Cooper had, circa 1950, abandoned Hollywood to enter politics to further their conservative political agendas. (All three men were what used to be known as rock-ribbed Republicans.) Movie immortality is what Gibson rejected to serve his Lord and Savior by the making of this film against what seemed to be insuperable odds and a phalanx of critics. He succeeded and in so doing embarrassed the liberal elite as no one has since Ronald Reagan.
Gibson deserves the financial reward for the risk he took.
I think he looked at his friend Jackson Nicholson and decided not to go that route.