Lordy, Mel Gibson is getting busy.
Just hours after the news was announced that he will direct a Viking epic to star Leonardo DiCaprio, Variety has revealed that won’t actually be next on Gibbo’s agenda. Instead, he’ll star in How I Spent My Summer Vacation, a self-penned action drama set in Mexico.
This explains why Gibson was glimpsed in Mexico last week; clearly, he was scouting locations, something he’s been doing for the best part of a year. What with this, starring in Jodie Foster’s The Beaver, preparing for the release of **Edge Of Darkness **and prepping that untitled Viking flick, Gibson must have left very little time for his Christmas shopping.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation will tell the story of a career criminal (Gibson) who gets sent to a squalid, crime-ridden Mexican prison, where he bonds with a nine year-old boy. Well, that part explains where the title, redolent of a school essay, comes from – and it also links this film, thematically, at least with Gibson’s directorial debut,** The Man Without A Face**, which also presented a scarred man with a shot at redemption in the guise of a friendship with a young boy.
However, Gibson won’t be directing this one; instead, Adrian Grunberg – his first A.D. on Apocalypto – will be yelling through a megaphone and doing that imaginary square thing with his hands. Stacy Perskie, his second A.D. on his mad Mayan epic, will produce along with Stuart Davey, leaving Gibbo to get on with the job of acting and being the writer on set.
Filming on the Icon Productions movie will start in March.