For the past decade, Mel Gibson has received the cold shoulder from Hollywood. After a DUI arrest in July 2006, the Oscar-winning Braveheart director hurled statements about "f?ing Jews" at an officer. Within hours, the arrest report was leaked, and industry reaction was swift and sudden. Ari Emanuel, then at Endeavor, penned an open letter that said the industry can't "allow Mel Gibson to get away with such tragically inflammatory statements." (He later dumped Gibson as an agency client.) Fast forward 10 years in directors jail, and the freeze-out is thawing. With his latest directing effort, Hacksaw Ridge, garnering Oscar-level praise (THR's David Rooney called the movie, about a conscientious objector in World War II, a "forceful comeback ? that succeeds in combining horror with grace"), the embattled star is poised to make a comeback.
