Mel Gibson To Keep Blowing Sh*t Up During WWII With DESTROYER

I really liked Hacksaw Ridge. The weird mix of bizarre, incredibly heightened Our Town melodrama (Hugo Weaving, wyd) and savage, hallucinatory war violence hit my anti-reality sweet spot in just the right place. It was hokey, gory, bizarre and basically made for me. Does that mean it deserved Academy Award nominations? Fuck no. But those old white dudes love a good "redemption" story (talk amongst yourselves about that one), so that's where those presumably came from. 

Now, Mel Gibson is looking to return to both the director's chair and WWII for his next outing, Destroyer, an adaptation of John Wukovits' non-fiction book Hell From the Heavens: The Epic Story of the USS Laffey and World War II’s Greatest Kamikaze Attack. Just as Hacksaw dealt with the Americans fighting the Japanese during WWII, Destroyer will focus on the Pacific Theatre once again, as the crew of the USS Laffey defend their ship from a whopping 22 kamikaze attacks. Sounds like there's plenty of room for Gibson's now trademark large scale carnage. 

The wrinkle to this story is that Gibson may also have a huge acting gig on the horizon, opposite Mark Wahlberg in The Six Billion Dollar Man. That re-imagining of the classic '70s TV series is coming courtesy of Wild Tales director Damian Szifron. Wahlberg is playing Col. Steve Austin, a downed pilot who's saved by an operation that makes him part machine, and it's reported that he's pushing for Gibson to co-star after playing his dad in Daddy’s Home 2. Do what that information what you will. 

I'd love to see more action insanity from Gibson, but this whole Six Billion Dollar Man business may gum up those works for a while. We'll bring you more on both as they develop, while also anticipating/dreading S. Craig Zahler's Dragged Across Concrete, which also stars Gibson, and whose main plot (revolving around crooked cops getting their "just due") sounds more like an elaborate dare than an actual movie.