Mel Gibson is returning to the spotlight with Hacksaw Ridge, his first feature as a director since Apocolypto. Gibson has had a notoriously rocky career over the last decade or so but is receiving some decent praise for Ridge which stars Andrew Garfield as the first army medic to ever conscientiously object to war and still receive a Medal of Honor. While the press has been largely positive for the new movie, Gibson’s time on the press circuit at the Venice Film Festival hasn’t been all fun and games. In an interview with Deadline Gibson shared his honest thoughts on one of the most anticipated (yet disappointing, depending on who you talk to) movies of this year.
Not many critics had kind words for Batman v Superman when it was released a few months back, but Mel Gibson managed to outdo the majority of those pans with his words about the comic book mess. He said,
“It’s a piece of s–t. I’m not interested in the stuff. Do you know what the difference between real superheroes and comic-book superheroes is? Real superheroes didn’t wear spandex. So I don’t know. Spandex must cost a lot.”
He continued to rail against the nonsensical amount of money spent to make the critical flop, and his thoughts are pretty reasonable (surprisingly).
“I look at them and scratch my head. I’m really baffled by it. I think there’s a lot of waste, but maybe if I did one of those things with the green screens I’d find out different. It seems to me that you could do it for less… You’re spending outrageous amounts of money, $180 million or more, I don’t know how you make it back after the tax man gets you, and after you give half to the exhibitors.”
The actor and director noted that his last two films only cost $40M and $30M, respectively, and as both are fairly large in scope it’s an impressive feat when compared with the other blockbusters that populate summer release dates. Maybe spandex really does cost that much.
(via Variety)
