Speaking of the man formerly known as Mad Max, after not acting in a movie since 2003′s “The Singing Detective”, Mel Gibson appears ready to make up for lost time. He’s got the revenge thriller “Edge of Darkness” coming out soon, and he’s already down in Mexico shooting his friendly-sounding-yet-anything-but prison movie “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”. Now he can add a return to action hero status as the lead in Shane Black’s “Cold Warrior” to his list of comeback films. Black signed on to direct the spec script almost two years ago, but he’s just now landed his main draw — an A-list leading man.
Black and Gibson share a history — one of Gibson’s biggest hits was 1987′s “Lethal Weapon”, which Black wrote on spec. In “Cold Warrior”, Gibson would play a retired cold war spy who must shake off the shackles of easy living and comfy lawn chairs yelling at kids to get off his lawn to stop a domestic terrorism threat from Russia. Gibson’s character is teamed up with a younger agent who will, in true buddy cop movie shtick, probably be very married to that “by the book” thing, while Gibson is the “loose cannon” type.
Hey, I could be wrong and it could be the other way around, or maybe they’ll both be stick in the mud types who reads everyone their Miranda rights. Who knows, it is Shane Black, after all, he could throw us a curve, but I doubt it.
“Cold Warrior” will be Black’s second movie after 2005′s action-comedy “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”.
Watch out, crazy Russian terrorists, Mel Gibson is a-comin’ for ya!
