The movie Mel Gibson called a “labour of love” that he also sued for fraud: “I regret this film”
Every actor, filmmaker, and producer would have you believe that everything they make is a passion project, even when that’s clearly not the case. Mel Gibson literally made a movie called The Passion, but that wasn’t the labour of love that forced him to take legal action.
It’s been a long time since the two-time Academy Award winner has attached himself to anything that audiences would take seriously as a passion project, mostly because he’s spent the better part of the last two decades hovering around the straight-to-video doldrums, a career freefall entirely of his own making.
Obviously, his two-part sequel to The Passion of the Christ will fit that bill, even if the more cynical view is that he’s finally helming the follow-up to give himself a much-needed hit, since the opening instalment became the highest-grossing R-rated movie and top-earning independent film in history back in 2004.
The disgraced A-lister hasn’t flirted with serious drama too often since he was exiled from mainstream Hollywood, with the most notable being the acclaimed Hacksaw Ridge, in which he didn’t appear on camera. That might have something to do with The Professor and the Madman, a would-be prestige picture that eventually wound up on the road to disaster.
The marketing would basically sell itself, in theory, since it ticked all the requisite boxes. Period piece? Check. Fascinating true story? Since the plot followed a murderer who was sentenced to a psychiatric facility after being found not guilty by reason of insanity, and then played an essential role in the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, absolutely.
Even though they’re hardly beloved names, The Professor and the Madman could still hang its hat on the whole, ‘Starring Academy Award winner Mel Gibson and Academy Award winner Sean Penn’ thing, until it all went tits up, leaving the former to challenge a film he produced and played the lead role in inside the courtroom.
“This was a labour of love for the entire creative team, and it is unfortunate for all concerned that this film was never finished as written,” he shared in a statement. “I regret this film will never be seen as it was meant to be. Making it was never about money for Icon; it was about bringing this amazing story to the big screen. Sadly that has not happened in the way it could have.”
In July 2017, the erstwhile Mad Max and his production company had sued Voltage Pictures, claiming the outfit had prevented the director, Farhad Safinia, from completing the film. Gibson argued that certain scenes needed to be shot on location in Oxford, while Voltage disagreed, citing budgetary and scheduling concerns. Voltage then claimed the star and director walked off the set, which both parties denied.
The lawsuit alleged breach of contract and promissory fraud, on the basis that the company had “disregarded their contractual obligations” by failing to give Gibson and Icon what they’d asked for. Ultimately, the matter was settled behind closed doors when the Braveheart director’s demands to reclaim the rights to The Professor and the Madman were denied by a judge, so he simply washed his hands of it.
So did Safinia, who was credited under the pseudonym PB Sherman instead, and the $25 million production proved to be a waste of everyone’s time, effort, and money when it barely made a blip on the cinematic radar.
