According to Variety, the movie likely to be Mel Gibson’s next directorial effort will be a viking story, written by William Monahan (The Departed, Kingdom of Heaven), and starring once and future heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio. It’s really early in the process to be saying this – as Gibson is finishing up The Beaver with Jodie Foster, and DiCaprio just finished principal photography on Christopher Nolan’s Inception – but I got pretty excited when I read the headline to the story.
Of course, I initially had hoped that maybe Gibson was going to star in the movie as well, but he’s done well enough with the period movies where he was just behind the camera (Apocalypto). Monahan, has been on a steady role since breaking in, with KoH being his first credited feature writing gig. He also scripted the soon to be released Martin Campbell, Mel Gibson starring movie Edge of Darkness.
DiCaprio’s ventures into periods, beyond the 30’s or 40’s, has been the 17th century Man in the Iron Mask, and the 19th century Gangs of New York. So, it’ll be interesting to see him stepping back further to meet the time frames of Gibson’s previous movies (13th century in Braveheart, 16th in Apocalypto, and the first century in The Passion of The Christ).
