The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced it will restore the gun rights of actor Mel Gibson, a decision that has ignited controversy and underscored internal divisions within the Trump istration. The decision, which also affects nine other individuals with past criminal convictions, was approved by Attorney General Pam Bondi and is expected to be formally published in the Federal . 1j1s3l

As reported by Rolling Stone, this ends a controversial debate that reached the department’s highest levels, which ended in the dismissal of former Pardon Attorney Elizabeth G. Oyer. Oyer’s dismissal followed her refusal to recommend restoring Gibson’s gun rights, a stance she maintained despite pressure from superiors.

In an interview with NY Times and an op-ed for Rolling Stone following her termination, Oyer stated that a department official attempted to influence her decision, citing Gibson’s “personal relationship with President Trump” as sufficient justification.

Mel Gibsen gets gun rights back 3y4ty

Oyer explicitly stated her concerns were not politically motivated but stemmed from safety risks associated with reinstating gun ownership for an individual with a history of domestic violence. Gibson pleaded no contest in 2011 to a misdemeanor battery charge involving his former girlfriend, an incident that formed the basis of Oyer’s objections.

She emphasized the gravity of returning firearms to individuals with domestic violence convictions, emphasizing the potential for serious consequences. A senior department official denied that Oyer’s dismissal was related to this disagreement.

Gibson’s legal team had previously requested the restoration of his gun rights, noting his unsuccessful attempt to purchase a firearm in Nevada due to his prior conviction. Even with federal approval, Gibson’s ability to possess firearms remains subject to state-level regulations. Nevada law prohibits convicted felons from owning guns; however, Gibson’s conviction was a misdemeanor.

The DOJ’s decision is part of a broader conservative effort to relax firearms restrictions for individuals with criminal records. While the Supreme Court upheld government regulations restricting firearm access for those subject to domestic violence restraining orders. The Trump istration has initiated a review of federal gun policies, aiming for less restrictive measures.

This led to the publication of new regulations designed to restore gun rights for some with criminal convictions. The department clarified its intention to prevent “violent and dangerous people” from acquiring firearms while ensuring an “appropriate avenue” for restoring rights to individuals who have demonstrated law-abiding behavior. The criteria for restoring gun rights considers “a combination of the nature of their past criminal activity and their subsequent and current law-abiding behavior.”

The DOJ’s action basically restores authority to the Attorney General (or a designated official) to reinstate gun rights, a power previously restricted by congressional spending bills since 1992. The decision to restore Gibson’s gun rights serves as a specific example of this broader policy shift, and there will likely be more controversy as this continues to be in effect.

Actor Mel Gibson, who’s been trying to crawl his way back into Hollywood’s good graces, decided to take a break from his redemption arc to pucker up and plant a big, sloppy kiss on Donald Trump’s behind. 

Gibson recently appeared on Sean Hannity’s show, lavishing praise on Trump who, in his eyes, was playing the role of the stern father figure coming to scold the mismanaged Californian authorities. “It’s like daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off, you know?” he gushed, apparently suffering from a severe case of amnesia that made him forget he’s a grown man talking about another grown man. There are some things you just don’t say out loud, let alone on national television.

Gibson’s comments came after Trump visited California to survey the aftermath of the wildfires, which caused significant damage to parts of the Southern California region. During his visit, Trump was greeted by California Governor Gavin Newsom, whom the former president has criticized and referred to as “Newscum” in recent weeks, specifically targeting Newsom’s handling of the wildfire crisis. Regardless, Gibson’s remarks quickly gained attention on social media platforms, with many s expressing discomfort and criticism towards the actor’s choice of words.

The consensus? It’s not just weird — it’s uncomfortably weird.

But hey, why the creepy daddy praise? What’s in it for Mel? Could it be that shiny title of being one of Trump’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood? What a treat! From outcast to insider, all it took was a little bootlicking and some good old-fashioned MAGA cheerleading.

Aligning with MAGA might raise eyebrows, considering Mel’s just dusted off his Hollywood comeback cape, after a brief hiatus spent spewing antisemitic venom during a DUI arrest, grappling with a domestic violence probe, and copping to a battering case against his ex. Really, if there’s a bad decision to be made, trust Mel to say, “Hold my beer.”

Gibson later tried to make a comeback with Hacksaw Ridge (2016) after his parade of public disasters. Instead of keeping it low-key, he not only endorsed Trump with the fervor of a born-again zealot but also threw some sexist jabs at Kamala Harris for good measure. Plus, he backed Sound of Freedom, a flick accused of fanning the flames of QAnon conspiracy theories. Hollywood might have short-term memory loss, but the rest of us aren’t equipped with such convenient amnesia. Now, instead of showing true repentance or, heaven forbid, actual personal growth, he’s hitching his wagon to Trump’s star.

The disgraced actor is not the only one suffering from a severe case of daddy issues, though. Every other day, we’re subjected to some MAGA devotee talking about Trump like he’s the father figure they never had but always wanted. “He tells it like it is!” they cry, conveniently ignoring the fact that most of what spews from his mouth is a barely coherent word salad. And oh, how they swoon when he tosses them a bone — Never mind that the bone in question is usually little more than a half-gnawed scrap of nonsense wrapped in a thick layer of racism, sexism, and general bigotry, then served with a side of corruption. If this is the kind of paternal love they’ve been missing, a few therapy sessions might be a safer bet than a rally.

A fair chunk of moviegoers harbor a certain fussiness about realism that I could never bring myself to understand. These folk, regardless of what kind of film they thrust themselves into, will be so dedicated to spotting plot holes and despising the acting, that they’ll forget to well and truly watch the movie.

This obsession with realism, I presume, dissipates rather quickly when you’ve established even a vague proximity to the film world like I have. The reason being that you become painfully aware that fully grown, allegedly professional adults allow films like Flight Risk to get made the way they do. Once you ively comprehend this, there is absolutely nothing on this godless green Earth that could for you as “unrealistic” anymore, because anything is possible at that point.

Flight Risk stars Michelle Dockery as Madelyn Harris, a Deputy U.S. Marshal who’s tasked with escorting a man named Winston (Topher Grace) from Alaska to New York so that he can testify against the Moretti crime family. They board a non-descript plane flown by pilot Darryl Booth (Mark Wahlberg), but when the pilot turns out to be a hitman sent to kill Winston, the journey begins to unravel quite perilously.

The goal of making this film even halfway bearable is to regard it as a parody because none of Flight Risk‘s moving parts give the impression that this was an honest attempt at an action thriller, or even a crude action comedy, as it more often behaves. In its sea of meaningless intrigue (more on that later), the greatest mystery of Flight Risk is what exactly drew Mel Gibson of all people to the director’s chair.

It’s no easy nor responsible task to separate Gibson from his infamous past, but speaking purely from a filmmaking perspective, Gibson has firmly established himself as a serious storyteller. It’s hard to deny the prowess of the grit, scope, and drama of Braveheart, Apocalypto, and Hacksaw Ridge, and even his lesser directorial outings at least had a sheen of robust effort. But in Flight Risk, the film opens to a neon motel sign with the letters “O” and “T” shorted out (thereby spelling “Mel” in giant letters), as if to purposely telegraph how idiotic the next 90 minutes are going to be. Indeed, Gibson directing thoroughly non-Gibson-coded material is the film’s greatest joke, as well as the crux of its accidental parody.

But back to the point of 90 idiotic minutes, Gibson and company deliver on that front. Topher Grace is up a creek with no paddle as Winston, the meek fish-out-of-water who’s ostensibly meant to be the comic relief, as though awkwardly announcing that you peed your pants — and other gags like it — is worth the price of a movie ticket. This would be indefensible just on its own, but Grace can’t even manifest an impression of comedic timing here; a likely casualty of the creative discord that Flight Risk reeks of.

Dockery is no better as Madelyn, who finds herself at the center of a couple of predicaments, including keeping the hitman incapacitated, contending with the corruption back home in the justice department, landing the plane, flirting with a pilot named Hassan who’s going to help her land said plane, and keeping Winston alive.

If this sounds like too many plot threads to tie up in 90 minutes, it’s because it is. Most of these beats only exist to give the illusion that something is happening in this movie, and even then, Flight Risk doesn’t seem to know which ones — if any — are even worth pretending to invest in. As a result, Dockery has no real way to approach Harris sincerely, because the character’s personal drama has no narrative relevance, and exists entirely to fill the gaps between the action. And that’s if the film decides to go there instead of pivoting to more nervous stammering from Winston.

None of these things — Harris’ past and the police corruption, Winston’s panicky demeanor and guilt, and the violent clashes with the pilot — boast any meaningful cohesion. It’s as though Flight Risk thought it could coast by on the presence of Wahlberg’s killer pilot alone, only to realize that he would need to spend half of the movie handcuffed to the wall to make a feature-length runtime work, thereby neutering the danger/tension and requiring the film to gerrymander a rickety story about trust in its place. It grasps at straws and we viewers choke on its negligence.

Finally, there’s the matter of Wahlberg, who bookends Flight Risk‘s unintentional parody chops. Let’s face it; regardless of the prowess he’s shown in likes of Boogie Nights, The Departed, The Fighter, and others, it can be difficult not to impulsively confine Wahlberg to a colorful-tongued, half-delinquent archetype who lives and dies by the twang of his New England accent.

Here, he comes at us with a pronounced Southern drawl while the reveal of his true identity simmers underneath the character’s opening moments. No sooner does he drop the mask, however, do we find out that the Kentucky spice in his voice is also as fake as his toupee. And in its place? You guessed it; that ever-definitive Bostonian inflection. The fourth towel has been thrown into the ring, except this one matches the wink-adjacent energy of having Gibson in the driver’s seat of such a frail story.

From then on, Wahlberg descends into a truly perverted state of jester’s privilege, rhyming off vulgarity after misogynistic vulgarity and existing for no other purpose than to irritate and stab Winston and Madelyn. He’s easy to cheer against, but that doesn’t mean much when Flight Risk harbors a near-sadistic neglect for its characters. Indeed, Wahlberg’s hitman barely qualifies as an antagonist here given the artificiality of the would-be protagonists. Similar sentiments could be applied to Flight Risk across the board.

I’m choosing to believe that Jared Rosenberg’s original script (voted onto the 2020 Black List along with the Oscar-nominated screenplay of May December) was completely and utterly hacked to pieces at various stages of the production line. The disted emptiness of Flight Risk‘s proceedings certainly read as shadows of a different story (even three different stories) and the sheer lack of enthusiasm that ricochets between the three actors and Gibson is nauseatingly contagious, and could itself be the result of having signed up for one thing, and then working on a much worse thing.

But regardless of how Flight Risk started out, we can only judge the version that arrived in theaters, and that version is the foulest sort of foul that we’ll see all year. And even if you take the wisest possible route and canonize Flight Risk as a parody in your head alone, the fact that you need to do that in the first place says everything about this horrid state of affairs.

Donald Trump has named Mel Gibson as one of his special envoys to Hollywood, with the actor set to serve as an ambassador in the president-elect’s istration. 

Trump selected the 90s actor alongside fellow celebrities Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone, saying in a post on Truth Social that the trio will “be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.” The former president wrote that Gibson will help his istration in bringing Hollywood “BACK — BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”, adding that the actor would serve as his “eyes and ears” in the moviemaking town. “I will get done what they suggest,” Trump wrote of the newly-selected ambassadors. “It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”

Special envoys and ambassadors are usually chosen by presidents to respond to more troubled hotspots like the Middle East, not California. Beyond that, Trump’s selection of Gibson has raised questions about his suitability for the role and the criteria that led him here. In any case, Gibson himself said he was “just as surprised” to be named by Trump in the new role. 

Mel Gibson said he will “heed the call” as Trump’s Hollywood ambassador.  2r4x48

Responding to the news of his selection in a press statement, Gibson – who endorsed Donald Trump during his presidential campaign – said he was “just as surprised” to be named as one of Trump’s Hollywood ambassadors. “I got the tweet at the same time as all of you and was just as surprised,” Gibson said (per Variety). “Nevertheless, I heed the call. My duty as a citizen is to give any help and insight I can.” The actor then joked about losing his home in the LA wildfires, asking whether the special envoy role “comes with an Ambassador’s residence.” 

The “insight” Gibson refers to is in response to Trump’s broader description of the ambassador role, in which he highlighted the need for more films to be produced on US soil and claimed that Hollywood “has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries.” Trump’s selection of Gibson is not without precedent, since the What Women Want star has been ive of the president-elect in the past. 

While Gibson was critical of Trump during his 2016 bid for the White House — saying Trump and Hillary Clinton, were both “bad candidates” — the actor has changed his tune about the former president in recent years. In 2017, the actor was caught looking dismayed when his Hollywood colleague Meryl Streep onished Trump during her speech at that year’s Golden Globes, though he was even more outwardly ive of him In the lead-up to last year’s election. 

In a video published by TMZ in October, Gibson said he didn’t think it was “going to surprise anyone who I vote for” and that Trump was a “pretty good guess” as to where his affiliations lied. He also declared that Trump’s 2024 presidential opponent, Kamala Harris, had an “appalling track record” with “no policies to speak of” and “the IQ of a fence post.”

Mel Gibson has attracted controversy in the past. 60f1y

In 2006, Gibson was caught on video while being arrested for a DUI saying anti-semitic remarks like “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Similar accusations of antisemitism erupted in the wake of the release of The ion of the Christ, which was directed by Gibson and was criticized by The Anti-Defamation League for its unflattering depiction of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.

In 2010, Gibson faced allegations of domestic abuse leveled by the mother of his children, Oksana Grigorieva. That year, she filed a restraining order against the actor as audio leaked of a rant directed at her in which he used insanely racist and abusive language while screaming at her about her clothing choices

Andrew Garfield has worked with a number of directors throughout his career, and when it comes to the violent racist Mel Gibson, he only has good things to say! In an exclusive interview with People, Garfield shared his thoughts about actor and director Mel Gibson, who has been caught up in controversies in his decades-long career.

Gibson directed Garfield in the 2016 war biopic Hacksaw Ridge, where the latter played the lead role of World War II U.S. Army Corporal and combat medic Desmond Doss. The actor said he had “deep, important conversations” with Gibson and said he learned a lot from the veteran actor.

“I learned that people can heal. I learned that people can change, that people can get help. I learned that everyone deserves respect.”

Garfield further noted that no one is infallible and people deserve second, third, and fourth chances in life.

Mel Gibson’s many controversies throughout the years 1c5d6y

Gibson has been embroiled in controversies for decades, mostly from homophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic statements he had made. In 1991, a Spanish newspaper asked for his thoughts about homosexuality, and the actor said, “They take it up the a**. This is only for taking a s**t.” A few years later, he was chastised for how he depicted Edward II in Braveheart, a movie he produced, directed, and starred in. GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) described the portrayal as a “homophobic caricature” and Gibson refused to apologize, saying, “I’ll apologize when hell freezes over. They can f**k off.”

In 2010, actress Winona Ryder revealed in an interview with GQ that she had an offputting experience with Gibson during a party sometime in the ‘90s when she was with her gay friend. Ryder alleged that a drunk Gibson made a “really horrible gay joke” and during the conversation, her Jewish faith came up. “He said something about ‘oven dodgers’ but I didn’t get it. I’d never heard that before,” Ryder said. An “oven dodger” is a derogatory term for Jews in reference to those who escaped gas chambers during the Holocaust. Gibson denied having said that and called the actress a liar.

Perhaps what most is when Gibson was arrested for a DUI in 2006 wherein he made anti-Semitic remarks to the arresting officer. A hostile Gibson resisted arrest, screamed threats, and went into an anti-Semitic tirade, saying, “F***ing Jews! The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world! Are you a Jew?” Gibson later apologized to the Jewish community and said there was no excuse for what he said.

In yet another incident, a recording came out in 2010 where Gibson was heard berating his then-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, calling her a “f***ing b***h on heat,” adding that she would be to blame if she gets raped by a “pack” of N-word. The actor responded to the revelation by saying Grigorieva edited the audio recordings.

Andrew Garfield says Mel Gibson ‘deserves to make films’ 22a2e

Garfield described Gibson as empathetic and a visceral storyteller, which is why he believes Gibson should continue to make movies, saying that the director has since “done a lot of beautiful healing with himself.”

“He’s an amazing filmmaker, and I think he deserves to make films. He deserves to tell stories, because he has a very, very big, comionate heart.”

Gibson isn’t the same star he once was, but he is looking to direct a sequel to The on of the Christ and Lethal Weapon 5 if obstacles like his own deeply damaged brain don’t stop him from doing so.

Anti-Semitism is still a huge problem worldwide, and sadly, that problem extends to Hollywood. Winona Ryder is one of many high-profile Jewish actors who have spoken out about the unfortunate issue, saying movie executives and even fellow performers have said some inappropriate things to her regarding her religious heritage.

The star of cinematic wonders (like Beetlejuice, its sequel, Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, etc) chatted with the British newspaper The Times in 2020, telling the publication about one particularly disturbing exchange with an A-list Hollywood star.

Ryder said the star in question asked her gay friend, “Oh, wait, am I gonna get AIDS">TODAY that Ryder’s claims about Gibson are “100 untrue,” but Ryder also told The Times that he had attempted to apologize for his words later.

Given Gibson’s habitual lousy behavior, we’re inclined to believe Ryder. Gibson was blacklisted from Hollywood for a while but appears to be back in demand. Let’s hope he’s learned his lesson.

The world has Mad Max fever. The franchise has managed to captivate audiences worldwide since it was first introduced in 1979. The fifth installment, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, breaks tradition by serving as the franchise’s first official spinoff, but it’s very clearly meant to be a prequel to the 2015 classic Mad Max: Fury Road. These two films are interconnected, and promoted as two pieces of a whole by creator George Miller.

The tricky part, however, is how the continuity of these two films align with the original Mad Max trilogy. There’s a three decade gap between Fury Road and the third installment, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and given the Hollywood trend of rebooting iconic franchises, fans debated whether George Miller was making a sequel or a straight-up reboot. There’s an answer, but it’s not as cut and dry as one might expect.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a “revisiting” of the franchise 4k325o

The short answer to the reboot question is yes. Mad Max: Fury Road ignores the continuity of the first three films, and opts for an approach that is unique in its presentation. The technical answer, though, is no. George Miller originally planned to sync up the events of Fury Road with Mad Max, The Road Warrior (1982), and the aforementioned Thunderdome. The early version of Fury Road, conceived in the late 1980s, would have brought back original star Mel Gibson and continued the story as we knew it. The more time ed, however, the more difficult it became to maintain the continuity.

Miller went into the 2000s expecting to reunite with Gibson and make Fury Road the fourth entry, but started to rethink things around 2006. In a 2015 Q&A with Time Out Magazine, Miller said that the older Gibson got, the harder it would be to continue telling the story. He did not want to make a “final chapter” so much as a continuing adventure, in the vein of the 007 films. The director even cited the spy series as the basis for his decision:

Really, it was more that we were getting to the point where this wasn’t Unforgiven—it wasn’t about an old road warrior. So I began looking for someone to play Max, in the same way they kept on looking for new James Bonds.

The decision to recast Gibson with Tom Hardy is what allowed Miller to start from scratch, and effectively hit the reset button on Mad Max as a franchise. The director noted that the continuity between the first three films was already loose, given how little the events of a given story factors into Max’s adventures and appearance.

George Miller’s new Mad Max films emphasize continuity 4m6y3h

Miller’s assertion that the original trilogy had loose continuity is emphasized by how much focus he’s placed on the continuity of the new Mad Max films. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Mad Max: Fury Road only make sense in tandem, with the former being effectively incomplete without the resolution of the latter. Miller is so committed to this current iteration of the franchise that he’s already begun planning out the next installment, Mad Max: The Wasteland.

The director claimed that the film would take place in the period between Furiosa and Fury Road, and see Max forces with a young mother amidst the titular backdrop. Miller would bring back Tom Hardy as Max, further strengthening the continuity between the three films, making them a sort of self-contained trilogy within the larger franchise.

Still, the fate of Mad Max: The Wasteland depends on the box office performance of Furiosa. “I’ll definitely wait to see how this [Furiosa] goes, before we even think about it,” Miller told reporters at the film’s premiere. Furiosa underperformed during its opening weekend, but assuming Miller gets a chance to return to his signature franchise, it will explicitly connect to the story that we’ve already been told.

Mel Gibson’s legacy in Hollywood is equally grandiose as it is notorious since he had a string of unfortunate public controversies that permanently marred his once family-friendly image.

Perhaps nothing typifies Gibson’s reputational reversal and downfall from his once-superstar status more than his separation from ex-wife Robyn Moore Gibson, formerly known as Robyn Denise Moore, in 2009. But just what has Robyn been up to since the divorce and why did they split, to begin with?

When and why did the Gibsons divorce? 631z4v

First, the separation was significant for Gibson, from a public image standpoint, because the pair had been married for 29 years by the time the ink dried on the divorce paperwork. This was the culmination of a number of controversies that had been swirling around Gibson at the time.

It ultimately shifted the general perception of him from being part of one of Hollywood’s greatest and most ired power couples to being sized up in the public’s eye as a more unhinged and unpredictable loner now on the fringes of the mainstream.

Unsurprisingly, Gibson and Robyn separated immediately after the Mad Max actor was arrested for drunk driving in 2006, in which Gibson was heard spouting vile antisemitic remarks during the arrest, as covered by ABC News. 

In a t statement by the Gibsons as part of the divorce filing, “irreconcilable differences” was cited as the reason. But the actor would later squarely blame it on himself.

According to Gibson himself, in a 2011 interview with Deadline (via the Wayback Machine), Robyn and Gibson separated just days after the drunk driving arrest. After they separated, Gibson would later say on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (via Express UK) that he was to blame for their separation, and that if anyone should be judged in the situation, it was him. As he explained at the time:

“Look, when it’s all said and done, I did a pretty good hatchet job on my marriage myself.”

Even after Robyn and Gibson divorced, the Conspiracy Theory actor continued irreparably damaging his own reputation by being caught saying the n-word in a leaked voicemail message to his then-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva.

Where is Robyn Moore Gibson now? o3f2g

As for Robyn, who is the mother of seven of Gibson’s children and a dental nurse, she walked away with half of Gibson’s $850 million dollar fortune as part of the divorce. At the time, it was considered the largest divorce payout in Hollywood history, according to People.

In 2015, Robyn put up for sale a home the couple once shared in Agoura, Los Angeles, California. Robin listed the home for $1.79 million, after the couple originally purchased it in 2007 for north of $2 million, according to the LA Times.

In 2021, Robyn once again posted a home for sale. But this time, it was a home that she purchased after the divorce and never shared it with Gibson. A $32 million home in Malibu, California was posted by Robyn as being for sale, according to the New York Post. And that is not the only piece of property that Robyn has been involved with in Malibu. As the New York Post explained:

“Moore purchased a $17.5 million Malibu home [in late 2020], and she previously owned two other Malibu homes, one that burned down in the 2018 Woolsey wildfire and the other that she sold to real estate developer Robert Flaxman.”

Since Gibson’s divorce from Robyn, the actor has tried to make a comeback in Hollywood several times. This has included receiving another Oscar nomination for directing Hacksaw Ridge, the war drama starring Andrew Garfield. He was in the John Wick prequel The Continental and is also set to star in Lethal Weapon 5.

However, I think it’s safe to say that Gibson’s reputation has never fully recovered.

As for Robyn, it appears she has garnered a knack for real estate investing.

Thanks to the indiscretions that have derailed his mainstream career and seen his mere presence in any project continue to offend a great number of people, not many tears were shed when Netflix sequel Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget revealed that Mel Gibson wouldn’t be returning as Rocky.

However, replacing him with Zachary Levi was certainly a choice given the Shazam! star’s own controversies that have repeatedly seen his social media antics place him right in the firing line, but it was another recasting call that proved to ruffle the most feathers, a pun that’s absolutely intended.

Julia Sawalha won’t be back as Ginger, with the actress noting that her voice was deemed too old to reprise the role, causing her to reflect on “officially [being] plucked, stuffed & roasted” after Thandiwe Newton was drafted in for the long-awaited follow-up to the 2000 favorite.

Speaking to Total Film, director Sam Fell was bullish when questioned on the call to drop the original lead in favor of somebody that’s only five years younger, not that he seemed too concerned by the backlash considering we’re talking about anthropomorphized poultry at the end of the day.

“Some people changed, and some didn’t; it was just a personal choice. It’s all part of bringing it into my realm and making it for now.”

It’s hardly going to make or break Dawn of the Nugget‘s chances of success, because with Aardman at the helm it’s destined for greatness, but it would also be fair to say that Sawalha will be greatly more missed than Gibson for obvious reasons.

Although you’re a lot more likely to find him on the VOD circuit at this stage in career, Mel Gibson was a certifiable box office draw at the height of his A-list powers, before he essentially torpedoed his mainstream credentials with some less-than-savory and highly-publicized incidents.

Despite starring in a string of critical darlings, high-earning blockbusters, and wildly popular smash hits, though, the single biggest box office hit of the two-time Academy Award winner’s career came as part of a movie where he didn’t even step foot in front of the camera.

Instead, his brutal biblical epic The ion of the Christ stands tall as the top-earning entry in his entire filmography after hauling in a remarkable $612 million at the box office back in 2004, with talk of a sequel – or maybe more – bubbling away on the speculative back burner ever since.

Star Jim Caviezel hinted that Gibson was considering going full Fast & Furious by splitting the follow-up in two, and that might have proven to be right on the money after IMDb quietly updated the film’s title to The ion of the Christ: Resurrection – Part I. Based on the success of the opener, the inarguable popularity of faith-based stories among a certain demographic, and Caviezel’s recent run as the frontman of Sound of Freedom, we could realistically be talking about a billion-dollar two-parter here.

The Avengers might require a pair of feature films to overcome their latest arch-nemesis in The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, but it would appear that the ongoing adventures of one Jesus Christ simply cannot be contained by a single story, either.

As South Park famously put it; say what you want about Mel Gibson, but the son of a bitch knows story structure. Long before being lampooned by the animated classic, the two-time Academy Award winner put that to the test by getting too hands on for some in 1999’s hard-boiled thriller Payback.

The theatrical version was a decent-sized hit that hauled in $162 million at the box office, but the behind the scenes issues ended up stealing away plenty of the spotlight. Not only did Gibson come clean and it he played a pivotal role in having director Brian Helgeland removed from the production, but he was instrumental in the changes that were made thereafter.

Kris Kristofferson was added to the noir-tinged revenge story as its primary antagonist, extensive reshoots overhauled a third of the entire film, and the screenplay was heavily rewritten to follow the new creative direction. It wasn’t an ideal scenario for Helgeland, but he ended up getting his revenge in a roundabout sort of way.

Eight years after being forcibly exiled from his own feature, Payback: Straight Up hit home video, and there’s plenty of people out there willing to die on the hill that it’s the better version. Your mileage may vary on that front, but what can’t be argued is that the initial edition has been tracking down the people who wronged Gibson’s Porter on streaming and making them pay.

Per FlixPatrol, Payback V1.0 is currently one of the top-ranked titles on iTunes, and if it piques your interest then tracking down Straight Up comes highly recommended.

Having formerly spent decades reigning as one of the biggest and most bankable stars in the industry – acting and directing his way to billions at the box office and a pair of Academy Awards in the process – Mel Gibson is now firmly in his Nicolas Cage circa 2010s era.

The Lethal Weapon and Braveheart headliner can largely be found racking up an inordinate amount of credits in a slew of action thrillers that very rarely see the inside of a theater. In fact, taking top billing in John Wick prequel series The Continental is arguably his highest-profile gig for a while, and yet there’s been widespread backlash and threats of a boycott expressly based on his involvement.

Everybody knows that it was two hugely-publicized incidents in particular that derailed Gibson’s mainstream career and did irrevocable damage to his standing in the industry, but when reflecting on the cost of fame in an interview with The Indian Express, the 67 year-old seemingly has no regrets.

“I’m fine with it. I don’t mind being recognized, and people are usually friendly. There’s no real bad part for me. Fame has allowed me to pursue all kinds of dreams.”

Even if he’s become one of the most polarizing figures in Hollywood, Gibson’s back catalogue of titles both old and new can more often than not be relied upon to perform on streaming. Hammering that sentiment home even further, the dreadful Force of Nature – complete with eight percent Rotten Tomatoes score – has even sneaked onto Netflix’s weekly charts as one of the 10 most-watched movies on the entire platform, so it’s not as if he’s being entirely forgotten.