Mel Gibson Joining Spy Thriller ‘Cold Warrior’

Published by Jeff Leins on January 28, 2010

Mel Gibson is reuniting with Lethal Weapon screenwriter Shane Black for Universal’s spy thriller Cold Warrior.

The 54-year-old actor will play a former Cold War spy who comes out of retirement to thwart a domestic terrorism threat from Russia by teaming up with a younger agent, according to the Hollywood Reporter.  His partner has not been cast yet, but someone is probably checking to see if Shia LaBeouf is available.

Black didn’t write the script (Charles Mondry did), but he’ll direct for his second feature and is sure to bring his experience with buddy cop movies to the set.  Gibson recently returned to acting after a seven year hiatus with this weekend’s Edge of Darkness (my review is imminent), and Black’s last time behind the camera was 2005’s underrated Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.  Their partnership spells good things for the eventual finished product, especially after Gibson turned down the opportunity to work with him on a Lethal Weapon 5.  ”I’m too old for this shit” comes to mind.

Since returning to work Gibson has signed up for The Beaver, a strange schizophrenia film with Jodie Foster; How I Spent My Summer Vacation, a prison drama that he wrote and that sold international distribution already to Icon Entertainment; and he’s directing a Viking movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and says he wants the characters to speak entirely in Old Norse.

Despite his very public arrest in 2006 where he slurred disrespectful comments about women and Jewish people, I still enjoy a good Gibson flick.  He’s a solid enough actor that you forget he’s an oddball off camera.  People are able to separate Tom Cruise’s screen presence from his couch-jumping, Xenu-loving self, why not Gibson?  If audiences stopped watching an actor every time he or she got into trouble or made tabloid headlines for outrageous behavior then every movie would just star Tom Hanks.  There’s only so many times you can rework Castaway.