Whither goest Mel?

Mel Gibson, veteran superstar and Oscar-winning director fell off the Forbes Celebrity 100 list of entertainers and athletes last year. This year, his $30-million personal investment in “The Passion of the Christ” not only repaid his gamble but put him back on the Hollywood power map. His R-rated portrait of Jesus’ last hours has become the unlikeliest of blockbusters, taking in $295 million domestically. That translates into a huge potential windfall for the actor -- between $300 million and $400 million from gross revenues that may reach $1 billion overall.

According to Forbes senior editor Peter Newcomb, the Celebrity 100 rankings are based primarily on earnings during the past 12 months, although “celebrity” -- as measured by magazine covers and website hits -- is also factored in.

“Oprah’s a money machine, routinely taking in $180 million to $200 million a year,” he said. “And Spielberg’s always near the top. But given the money Gibson stands to make from ‘The Passion’ and the media attention it generated, I’d be shocked if he wasn’t No. 1. In this minute, Gibson is the 800-pound gorilla on the Hollywood landscape. The real question, since there’s no possibility of a sequel, is just what’s down the road.”

That question is also on the mind of an industry reeling from the magnitude of Gibson’s unexpected success. In a town where money talks and jockeying for position on the power lists is an obsessive annual ritual, the director’s currency is higher than ever, Hollywood executives say. Some underlying residue remains from Gibson’s handling of charges that “The Passion” was anti-Semitic. Still, most studios seem as eager as ever to sign him up, and his leading-man status is unchanged. Now that his two-year deal with Fox is expiring, most people interviewed for this story agreed, Gibson’s options are unlimited.

“Gibson was rich -- and now he’s richer,” said David Matalon, president and chief operating officer of New Regency Productions. “He was getting $25 million to star, plus a percentage of the gross -- and anyone doing business with him must be even more generous now.”

As tempting as it might be, Matalon said, “I doubt Gibson will sidestep the studio system. He doesn’t want to throw all his money into filmmaking -- and you need well over $1 billion and revolving credit to start a mini-studio, for the first year alone. Rather than marrying one studio, I suspect, he’ll he do different pictures on different lots and make the occasional one on his own.”

The apparatus is certainly in place, should something strike Gibson’s fancy, noted a producer currently working with Gibson’s Icon Productions who asked to remain unidentified. “The company already functions as a mini-studio,” he said. “It develops, produces and finances projects -- and has the capacity to distribute as well. It’s an all-encompassing business model, far from a vanity operation.”

An executive at a rival company agreed. “ ‘The Passion’ will make a billion dollars before it’s done,” he said. “Now, Gibson can make a lot of $30-million movies. He took the risk and it paid off.”

Still, aligning with a studio has never hurt Gibson’s ability to call his own shots, sources said. And a studio “housekeeping deal” takes care of office space and company overhead. Typically, Icon pays a portion of the production cost in exchange for international rights, while the studio gets domestic.

Although Gibson will be delivering only one film to Fox -- “Paparazzi,” a tale of movie star revenge set for September release -- he’s got a good track record. Before “The Passion” became all-consuming, he turned out “We Were Soldiers,” “What Women Want” and “Payback,” as well as the Oscar-winning “Braveheart” for Paramount Pictures.

If Fox is disappointed with Icon’s output under the deal, it’s putting a bright face on the situation. “We have a great relationship with Icon and hope it continues,” spokeswoman Flo Grace said, adding that the fourth “Mad Max” installment is still “in active development.”

Mandalay Entertainment Chairman Peter Guber doesn’t discount Gibson’s initiative.

“Hollywood operates by the Golden Rule -- he who has the gold makes the rule,” said Guber, who interviewed Gibson twice on AMC’s “Sunday Morning Shootout.” “You’ll see plenty of imitators and hangers-on -- success makes strange bedfellows.

“I give Gibson credit for using his resources to present his vision, which he has every right to express. But what dogs will be fed by Gibson’s Last Supper? The movie is a two-hour primer on how to do a crucifixion, lacking layers and context, that caught the zeitgeist of the time. It was an egregious mistake for a person living in a multicultural society to present that effort to the world community.”

A top major studio executive is equally upset by the “Passion” experience -- although if his company signed a deal with Gibson, he “wouldn’t fall on the sword,” he conceded.

“Putting Gibson into a leading man’s role isn’t a gamble,” he said, on condition of anonymity. “Hollywood will hire him -- but I wouldn’t. Gibson hasn’t tried to correct the perception that he’s anti-Semitic or distance himself from his father, who claims that the Holocaust was a hoax. He’s a movie star who rewrote the Bible, and his message wasn’t a positive one. Jews are as unpopular as they’ve ever been and this feeds into it. All those statements were calculated.”

Having sidestepped a risk-averse studio system and financed the movie on his own, the director will reap the lion’s share of the rewards. Theater owners, domestic and foreign distributors will get their cut, and actor James Caviezel, for one, has a deal guaranteeing a percentage of the profits. The movie is on track to gross $350 million to $400 million in the U.S. and Canada alone, and foreign theatrical revenue could be equally lucrative, although some observers were less optimistic.

The DVD market is another goldmine, now that the format has penetrated 45 million American households. Twentieth Century Fox, the domestic video distributor, declined to discuss specifics, but, assuming the studio gets the typical 20% distribution fee off the top, Gibson could make at least as much money on the video end as he does on domestic box office.

Licensing (generally 10% of the wholesale price) will feed $50 million to $75 million more into his coffers, even before TV rights are sold. And Icon’s expenditure for prints and advertising was low thanks to free publicity.

Although Gibson declined to discuss what he might do with his payoff, his publicist Alan Nierob said that other than co-directing (with Mike Scully) a pilot for ABC/Universal’s “Savages” -- a sitcom loosely modeled on Gibson’s experiences raising a large family -- he is commitment-free.

For the moment, that’s probably just as well.

“Mel is overwhelmed,” one studio executive said. “When you assume you’ll lose several million dollars and end up making several hundred million, anyone would be.”

In a radio interview last week, however, Gibson suggested he may take another leap into the faith-based realm. The story behind Hanukkah, which celebrates a Jewish rebellion around 165 BC, would make a great movie, he told News York station WABC’s Sean Hannity.

“The story that’s always fired my imagination is the Book of the Maccabees,” he said. The family “stood up and they made war; they stuck by their guns and they came out winning. It’s like a western.”

Informed of Gibson’s remarks, Anti-Defamation League executive director Abraham Foxman, one of “The Passion’s” earliest detractors, was unimpressed. If Gibson dramatizes the rebellion, he said, “we’ll lose.”

Gibson will have no trouble getting a mainstream picture off the ground, predicts Guber, a former chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. But whether he -- or anyone else -- will be able to sell the industry another faith-based movie is open to question.

“ ‘The Passion’ was made and marketed as Mel Gibson’s,” Guber said. “He was the true star of the film. His name gave the movie momentum. If Yuki Fiduki was the director, it would have lasted 10 minutes in the theaters. We don’t know yet if we have a new market on our hands or merely an anomaly.”

Even so, “Hollywood is grudgingly admiring of what Gibson has done,” News Regency’s Matalon said. “And eager to tap into the [religious] market of nonregular moviegoers. A few years ago, another low-budget religious film struck a chord with the Christian silent majority. I told my staff that they’re thirsty for that kind of programming. Now they believe me.”