Film Execs Apocalypto Over Mayan Dialect
Posted on July 26, 2005
We thought it was one of Mel Gibson's notorious practical jokes. But Variety swears that that Mel Gibson's upcoming film, entitled Apocalypto will not be in English. Or Aramaic. All dialogue in the film will be spoken in an obscure Mayan dialect. Yes, that's right: Mayan.
When production chiefs from selected studios trooped to Icon Prods. headquarters after an invite to read the film Mel Gibson planned for summer 2006, they were surprised at the very first page of the script. "The dialogue you are about to read will not be spoken in English." Gibson, who last made the most successful Aramaic-language film ever, is at it again.So, what is the screenwriting lesson to be learned here? When your last film made $1 billion, studio execs allow you to write your script in an obscure Mayan dialect. Class dismissed.Apocalypto hardly fits the traditional definition of a summer film. Set 500 years ago, pic will be filmed in an obscure Mayan dialect, presumably with the same kind of subtitles Gibson reluctantly added to The Passion of the Christ. It will star a neophyte cast indigenous to the region of Mexico where Gibson will shoot in October. And it likely will carry an R rating, unless Gibson tempers the onscreen depiction of violent scenes he wrote in his script.