Jhane Myers certainly wasn’t expecting a personal phone call from Mel Gibson.
“He said, ‘Hello, Jhane, I know you don’t know me. This is Mel Gibson, and I really would like to have you call me back,”‘ Myers recalled. When she did, the Oklahoma City public relations executive found herself enlisted in Gibson’s grass-roots marketing campaign for his new film, “Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto,” due in theaters Dec. 8.
Two years ago, Gibson reached out to Christians with a carefully orchestrated campaign that helped his film “The Passion of the Christ” become one of the most successful movies of all time, grossing $611 million worldwide. With “Apocalypto” – his visually sumptuous retelling of the fall of the Maya civilization – Gibson is hoping to strike box office gold once again by wooing Hispanics and American Indians such as Myers, hoping they will identify with his tale of an indigenous culture.
Trying to move on
This latest effort isn’t just a return to the playbook for promoting another hyper-violent movie made in an obscure language. It also marks an attempt by Gibson to move past his anti-Semitic outburst after a drunken-driving arrest in Malibu, Calif., in July.
Myers, a member of the Comanche nation, put aside any feelings she had on the topic and arranged to screen “Apocalypto” five times over a three-
day period in late September for American Indians and Hispanics in Oklahoma City and Lawton, Okla., as well as Austin, Texas. Guests were treated to surprise Q&A sessions with the Academy Award-winning director of “Braveheart” and star of dozens of Hollywood films, and Gibson was able to gauge audience reaction firsthand.
While Gibson has been toiling in the editing room, putting the final touches on the film, he and Disney also have been aggressively screening the movie before select audiences in the Hispanic community, including Los Angeles politicians and businessmen.
As with “Passion,” which contained brutal scenes of Christ’s torture at the hands of Roman soldiers, there are scenes of bloody violence in “Apocalypto” – in this case, human sacrifices in which heads roll – that are sure to make audiences squirm in their seats.
As an Anglo telling a Maya story with a largely non-Anglo cast and crew, Gibson will be under pressure to deliver a film that doesn’t insult Maya culture or divert too drastically from historical facts.
Marketing challenge
At the same time, Disney and Gibson’s company, Icon Productions, know that the marketing task ahead for them is difficult. After all, the film features a cast of unknowns, depicting a period of Latin American history of which U.S. citizens may have only passing knowledge, and characters speaking in an ancient Mayan dialect with English subtitles.
And, of course, threatening to overshadow the film and its marketing effort is Gibson himself.
No one yet knows how much effect that headline-grabbing arrest could have on his movie.
But some who have seen “Apocalypto” say the film should not suffer just because of the director’s personal mistakes.
One of those is actor Edward James Olmos, a leading voice in Hispanic cultural affairs, who said he was invited by Gibson to an early screening.
“I was totally caught off guard,” Olmos said in a recent phone interview. “It’s arguably the best movie I’ve seen in years. I was blown away.”
As for Gibson’s outburst and arrest, Olmos said that what director Elia Kazan did in the days of the Hollywood blacklist never made him avoid Kazan’s brilliant films.
“I think more damage was done (by) … what Elia Kazan did than what Mel Gibson did. That’s his problem and he has to live with it.”
