SHOCKER! Mel Gibson And Joe Eszterhas To Collaborate On Film Telling Jewish Hero Judah Maccabee Story For Warner Bros
EXCLUSIVE: It’s a project that will have everybody in Hollywood and beyond talking. I’ve learned that Warner Bros has set up an untitled drama that teams Gibson and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas on the telling of the heroic story of Jewish warrior Judah Maccabee. Eszterhas will write the script, and I understand that Gibson will collaborate with him. 
Maccabee teamed with his father and four brothers to lead the Jewish revolt against the Greek-Syrian armies that had conquered Judea in the second century B.C. Gibson has the first option to direct but will definitely produce the film through his Icon Productions banner. It’s understandable why Warner Bros would want to be back in business with Gibson, who was once a high-profile fixture there and who made a fortune for that studio with the Lethal Weapon series and other films.
Having put some painful personal issues behind him, Gibson is determined to get back to making movies. He has long wanted to make this film about heroic Jews, 
and it was discussed even when he was under fire after his drunken anti-Semitic rant during a 2006 Malibu arrest. Maccabee’s triumph and struggle against tyranny and oppression where people gave their lives so that others would be free to worship is celebrated by Jews all over the world through Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. This subject matter is a decided departure for the filmmaker famous for directing The Passion of the Christ. But in a way the subject matter is in his wheelhouse: Maccabee is a close cousin to William Wallace, leader of the Scottish rebellion against the English in Braveheart, the film that brought Gibson two Oscars: for Best Picture and Best Director. Gibson last directed Apocalypto about the Mayan civilization and a tribesman who escapes human sacrifice and saves his family. While Gibson has experienced tremendous success as a producer and director, his recent star turn in front of the camera in The Beaver was a box office failure even though it received a rousing ovation at this past Cannes Film Festival.
This new deal also marks a major return to filmmaking for Joe Eszterhas, once Hollywood’s highest paid screenwriter for pics like Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge, and Flashdance. His credits also include two films that focused on Jewish themes: the 1987 Betrayed, which starred Debra Winger as an undercover FBI agent probing white supremacists, and 1989’s Music Box, which starred Jessica Lange whose Hungarian immigrant father is accused of engaging in atrocities during World War II. Both films were directed by Costa-Gavras and produced by Irwin Winkler. Music Box resulted in Eszterhas being condemned by the Hungarian Parliament for “betraying his heritage” by revealing the massacre of Jewish Hungarians by other Hungarians at the end of World War II. However, in 1995, Eszterhas was awarded the Emanuel Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his writings about the Holocaust in Hungary.
In recent years, Eszterhas stepped away from Hollywood, moved to Cleveland, overcame cancer, and focused on writing books instead of films. Both he and Gibson have had their share of travails, and make an unexpected and intriguing pairing on an unexpected and intriguing subject.
The is like “The Producers” in reverse!
Interesting. I want to see this.
These are two men who have both been through fire. They know what it is to be at the height, to suffer, to be ostracized … they have both lived. They know what life is.
God uses the most unlikely people as messengers and as warriors.
What gifts God has given, He will never let go to waste.
Joe knows how to write and Mel is a powerful writer/director.
There is a bigger picture, a bigger goal … always is, but few realize it.
Best to you both.
I so agree with your comment and I am so dismayed by many of the other comments, plus the insinuation that The Passion of the Christ was an anti-Semitic film. The man, Mel Gibson, is a man and has his flaws. His work has been tremendous, and The Passion of the Christ was an historically accurate and spiritually beautiful, apparently career-courageous piece of work. Let us proceed gentlemen; i look forward to your project.
Anita that is very well said comment! Best of luck to Joe and Mel!
Great point. God did use Mel in making the passion as well as Jim Caveziel. Would be great to see him play Judah. God always uses ones you would not expect and they usually have character flaws.
Great comment. Thanks for the wise words.
I know Mel has wanted to do this for ages. He loves and believes in The Book of Maccabbes, and wants to make this story. It should be outstanding, hope he directs as well. For all of you naysayers, look out. I wish he was writing as well. I think it will be the bomb.
This story is JEWISH history, not a Christian text where he (Mel Gibson) can turn the characters into archetypal Jewish hook nosed people.
We DONT WANT mel making movies on our history. More worthy filmmakers exist out there, we dont want a Jew-hater doing movies on our history!!
yeah why don’t we get some skinheads to write a book about Passover next?
Newsflash! Maccabees is found only in the Jewish bible and Catholic Bible. It’s not a far stretch Gibson is involved in this movie.
Well, he will have Jews in the cast. If they don’t like the way that they are portrayed, they can riot. The passion had a lot of Jews in the cast and did you hear any of them protest against the portrayal of Jews in the movie?? no…I have to say about the passion that at least the part of Jesus was portrayed by a person of Jewish ethnicity, yet not of Jewish religious views, though he probably has family members that hold Jewish religious views so could relate. Most, if not all, movies about Christ have as the actor that plays Jesus a person who is not Jewish in any sense of the word and could never look Jewish. The passion didn’t portray Jews with outrageously large noses. Adam Sandler does as much in his movies, check out “Just go with it” and the huge nose that he has. If anyone is guilty of portraying Jews in a negative light it is Jews, themselves. The attitudes and views of Jews that have expressed their anger and hatred at Mel Gibson have showed themselves to be hypocrites when it comes to having tolerance. It just shows that people who claim that others are bigots usually are bigots, themselves.
KELLY – HOW CAN ANY STORE ABOUT JEWS BY GIBSON BE OUTSTANDING? are you nuts? did you forget to take your meds today? He is so racist, slanted and tained. Forget his holocaust denying father but this maggot Gibson is an anti-Semite, however you cut it. We might as well have the Grand Wizard of the KKK write a movie about Martin Luther King Jr. I can’t believe this is even a discussion.
You’re an idiot. As I’ve been saying ad nauseum on this very thread, Peter Biskind wrote a piece on Gibson in Vanity Fair recently which shows CONCLUSIVELY that Gibson’s no racist. Indeed by most accounts he’s a kind, brilliant, honorable and loyal guy which is why people like Jodie Foster think so highly of him.
and….It’s a movie…not facts…but entertainment…not a documentary…If you’ve noticed, documentaries are not entertaining and you have to be bored to watch it…
Kelly:
Gibson has made some terrific movies.
Braveheart, hands down is one of my all time favorite movies.
These comments are a lot better if you read them in a Jackie Mason voice.
LOL
Everyone makes mistakes, I have made my fair share. If I can forgive myself I can forgive others.
“Maccabee”
Director : Mel Gibson
Actor : Charlie Sheen
Writer : Oliver Stone
Producer : Disney
Executive Producer : David Duke
Special thanks : Bobby Fischer, Leni Riefenstahl
To premiere at Teheran Film Festival.
“Let my people go!”
Maybe the film should be called “REDEMPTION.”
Hardly a “shocker”, Mel is a great actor and an intelligent businessman, he is however a lousy person when he’s drunk.
Can’t wait to see it! Sounds like a promising film to watch!