Mel Gibson’s Jewish epic

It looks like Mel Gibson is back on the rehabilitating-his-image wagon. But this news still comes as a big surprise.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Warner Bros. is joining forces with Mel Gibson to develop a movie about the Jewish hero Judah Maccabee, and Basic Instinct screenwriter Joe Eszterhas has come aboard to write the screenplay. Gibson will produce through his Icon Productions and will decide whether he’ll act in or direct the film once the script is completed.

That’s right. Not only is the famously anti-Semitic Gibson producing a film about the hero of Hanukkah—not that hero—but he also might star as Judah Maccabee.

Gibson sees the film as a his Jewish “Braveheart.”

If you’re wondering what Gibson thinks of the Maccabee story and why he wants to make this film, check out the transcript that Jeffrey Goldberg posted of a conversation the two had a few years ago.

And if you’re wondering why this post wasn’t up earlier—you know, before Abe Foxman weighed in—the answer is that jewishjournal.com was offline for the past little while. The VideoJew sends his apologizes. But you should be seeing this now.