LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 15: Director Mel Gibson poses in the press room at the 21st Annual Huading Global Film Awards at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on December 15, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matthew Simmons/Getty Images)
Matthew Simmons/Getty ImagesMel Gibson’s Hollywood comeback is now complete.
Paramount has made an official offer to Gibson to star with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg in Daddy’s Home 2. John Lithgow also has an offer to join the cast.
The popular actor and filmmaker, whose image took a hit in the late aughts, hasn’t done a pure studio movie since Disney’s M. Night Shyamalan thriller Signs, in 2002. Most of his other movies were made outside the studio system as execs and agents tried to steer clear of the actor-filmmaker. Even Edge of Darkness was made and financed independently, although Warner Bros distributed it in 2010.
Just how contentious Gibson was is best encapsulated by The Hangover: Part II. Gibson was to have made a cameo appearance in the 2011 movie but a backlash within the studio and parts of the cast ended with him being unceremoniously dropped. (Liam Neeson replaced him.)
But Gibson has been on an upward swing since Lionsgate released Hacksaw Ridge, his war movie biopic of conscientious objector Desmond Doss, in late 2016. The movie now has six Oscar nominations, including one for Gibson for best director, and has made $163 million worldwide.
Daddy’s Home 2 will once again see the two types of father figures — the strong alpha male and the sensitive caring type — go head to head, but in this one the palette is expanding to include an older generation. If offers are accepted and deals made, Gibson and Lithgow would be that older generation.
