PETER BART
(Variety) Memo to: Mel Gibson (news)
From: Your faithful cast and crew in Italy
Re: Spreading the wealth
WE WISH TO CONGRATULATE YOU on your movie's amazing success. In our eyes, you are a mega-maestro and working with you was truly a mystical experience.
While expressing our appreciation, we would also like to raise what we acknowledge to be a sensitive issue: Namely, what do you plan to do with all that money?
Normally, this would be a trifling question, but we understand that your personal take from "The Passion of the Christ" probably will exceed $250 million. That in itself is a religious experience.
You recently purchased a substantial residence in the Eternal City, which suggests your connection with the people of Italy. We trust you will therefore reconnect with your faithful cast and crew, since all of us worked for scale --- Italian scale, at that.
Filmmakers like George Lucas (news) on "Star Wars" and Peter Jackson (news) on "The Lord of the Rings" dispensed bonuses to their minions totaling many millions of dollars. While we don't want to sound venal, Mel, there were no gross participants on your film and no previous rights holders to buy off. We are told that New Line had to write checks for more than $100 million to Saul Zaentz and Harvey Weinstein, who previously had owned the basic material on "Rings." We would remind you that neither the central character in your movie nor His heirs are around to stake such claims.
SO LET'S BE BLUNT ABOUT IT, Mel: We feel we deserve a piece of the action. You made us all sign intimidating "gag orders" during filming, which we obeyed faithfully, but we all have tales to tell now --- how petulant you were, for example, that you couldn't readily find technicians with experience performing crucifixions or public scourging.
If additional compensation would improve our morale, so would another gig. Both HBO and ABC have started shooting major productions set in ancient Rome, but we've had difficulty securing parts. Directors seem wary about using actors whose faces are now emblazoned on screens across the world as Christ-killers.
Filmmakers are not champing to sign Hristo Naumov Shopov because of his empathetic performance as Pontius Pilate or Luca de Dominicis based on his depiction of Herod. Jim Caviezel (news) got a lot of ink as Jesus, but even he had only a few lines to utter --- and in Aramaic, at that!
GIVEN YOUR STATED APPETITE for exploring other biblical subjects, Mel, we would appeal for preference for those roles. Some of us scouted locations for you for a possible film based on the Medici family in Renaissance Florence --- the sybaritic life and times of Lorenzo il Magnifico could represent a nice change of pace for you.
Apart from this, Mel, we would urge you to consider the wider implications of your vast success. No one in history has ever found a way of turning the Gospels into a money machine, but that achievement carries with it certain ecumenical responsibilities. Just as Jesus' teachings brought great benefit to the world, so could your humanitarian contributions. We are aware of your zealously conservative approach to Catholic doctrine, but "Passion" speaks not just to Catholics around the world but to those of many faiths.
Understandably, you think of yourself as a filmmaker, Mel, not as a teacher or polemicist, but a broader role has now been thrust upon you.
MILLIONS OF YOUNG FILMGOERS around the world believe you have important spiritual insights to convey. Like it or not, you must now enunciate them. Despite the wrath of your critics, we believe your primary motivation in making "Passion" was to spread understanding, not hate. Now comes the time to put your money where your mouth/philosophy is.
But while you're doing it, Mel, consider the possibility of some bonuses for your cast and crew. Staging all those beatings and scourgings wasn't easy work. There was blood on our hands. It would be nice to substitute some money
