Mel Gibson And Joe Eszterhas To Collaborate On Film Telling Jewish Hero Judah Maccabee Story

Deadline New York ^ | 9/8/11 | Mike Fleming

[marshmallow]

It’s a project that will have everybody in Hollywood and beyond talking. I’ve learned that Warner Bros has set up an untitled drama that teams Gibson and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas on the telling of the heroic story of Jewish warrior Judah Maccabee. Eszterhas will write the script, and I understand that Gibson will collaborate with him. Joe Eszterhas Judah Maccabee MovieMaccabee teamed with his father and four brothers to lead the Jewish revolt against the Greek-Syrian armies that had conquered Judea in the second century B.C. Gibson has the first option to direct but will definitely produce the film through his Icon Productions banner. It’s understandable why Warner Bros would want to be back in business with Gibson, who was once a high-profile fixture there and who made a fortune for that studio with the Lethal Weapon series and other films.

Having put some painful personal issues behind him, Gibson is determined to get back to making movies. He has long wanted to make this film about heroic Jews, and it was discussed even when he was under fire after his drunken anti-Semitic rant during a 2006 Malibu arrest. Maccabee’s triumph and struggle against tyranny and oppression where people gave their lives so that others would be free to worship is celebrated by Jews all over the world through Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights.

[ClearCase_guy]

I genuinely like Gibson.

We all have our flaws -- but the flaws of many in the entertainment business are totally overlooked. Gibson? Oh, they were just waiting for a chance to use his flaws against him. They weren't going to cut him any slack.

Fortunately for him, he has enough talent to make a comeback. I plan to support him, and I hope he gets his personal demons under control.

[COBOL2Java]

Antonio Ciseri's Martyrdom of the Seven Maccabees (1863), depicting the woman with her dead sons.

2 Maccabees

Shortly before the revolt of Judas Maccabeus (2 Maccabees 8), Antiochus IV Epiphanes arrested a mother and her seven sons, and tried to force them to eat pork. When they refused, he tortured and killed the sons one by one. The narrator mentions that the mother "was the most remarkable of all, and deserves to be remembered with special honour. She watched her seven sons die in the space of a single day, yet she bore it bravely because she put her trust in the Lord." Each of the sons makes a speech as he dies, and the last one says that his brothers are "dead under God's covenant of everlasting life". The narrator ends by saying that the mother died, without saying whether she was executed, or died in some other way.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

I thought of that after I posted but then I figured, this is an Eszterhas movie. The audience knows about Romans, not Selucids. It will be Romans.

[Tax-chick]

Hellenistic. Post-Alexandrine phalanx with some Persian stylings.

It’s a great story - we read the books every couple of years - but I just can’t take a Gibson Gore-fest. I’d rather Cecil B. DeMille had done it.

[MEGoody]

It’s a project that will have everybody in Hollywood and beyond talking.

Not likely.

[Labour-Watch]

Having put some painful personal issues behind him, Gibson is determined to get back to making movies. He has long wanted to make this film about heroic Jews, and it was discussed even when he was under fire after his drunken anti-Semitic rant during a 2006 Malibu arrest.

Barf!!!

You can't put the cat back in the bag, Gibson.

[allmendream]

Will he cast a gentile in the titular role again?

[Lee N. Field]

Hellenistic. Post-Alexandrine phalanx with some Persian stylings.

It’s a great story - we read the books every couple of years - but I just can’t take a Gibson Gore-fest. I’d rather Cecil B. DeMille had done it.

Didn't G. F. Handel write an oratorio on the Macabees?

[barstoolblues]

If you think you are going to get truth from Ezterhaus and Mel Gibson, or any Hollywood movie, your kidding yourself.

I like the movie The Ten Commandments as much as anyone, but I don’t look to that movie for a full truthful tellng of the Exodus. There are too many facets for a movie to cover.

[lastchance]

Warner Bros will bow out and the film will be canned. Why because Mel committed the cardinal sin of Hollywood. He let his anti semitism become public knowledge. He did it in very unaccetable and repugnant terms. If he had attented a pro Palestine rally carrying an anti Zionist placard and waving a Hamas flag all would be well. If he had organized a protest againt Israel’s “occupation” of Gaza. That would be fine. If he had drummed up support for the Gaza flotilla. He would be a hero.

So drunken rants against Jews make you an outcast but supporting policy that would actually lead to the deaths of millions of Jews that makes you a Tinsel Town glory boy.

[lastchance]

This is Hollywood. With the right amount of studio backign you can stuff a lot of cats back into a lot of bags.

[Tax-chick]

“... some painful personal issues” like his wife and mistress and zot only knows how many children. But it’s all good, because they’re “behind him.”

[Tax-chick]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Maccabaeus_(Handel)

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Warner Bros will bow out and the film will be canned.***

Just like they built up, then backed out of the movie THE FAIR GOD (SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE!) back in the early 1960s. It was to be based on the book by Lew Wallace (Ben Hur).

[RBIEL2]

There will be BLOOD! Bloody Mel is the Sam Peckinpah of our time.