First, the audiotape of part of the rant reported earlier by Joe Eszterhas has been released: Transcript of Mel Gibson Rant to Joe Eszterhas (The Wrap).
Why don’t I have a first draft of "The "Maccabees"?No anti-Semitic comments were recorded. Much of the rest seems to involve the expression of negative views regarding his ex-girlfriend, using a limited range of vocabulary.
What the f**k have you been doing?
I’ll type it!
More interesting is the report by Sharon Waxman, again from The Wrap, on the content of the rejected script, which she has seen: The Joe Eszterhas ‘Maccabees’ Script: Bloody Butchery, Heroic Jews (Exclusive). Excerpt:
Eszterhas’s script is remarkably faithful to the 2nd century B.C. biblical tale. A group of five brothers, sons of the high priest Mattathias, band together to fight the anti-Jewish occupation of Israel by the Greek-Syrian ruler, Antiochus.She is surprised that Gibson and Warner Bros. rejected it.
It is primal: white hats and black hats. Heroes and heinous villains. Good vs. evil.
On the face of it, this is a script that Mel Gibson should absolutely love: A band of pious underdogs take on an evil overlord. (They don’t paint their faces a la “Braveheart,” but the Jewish women are physically branded as harlots.)
It is full of throat-slitting and cutting off of heads. There are miles of heads on stakes. In one scene, a woman plunges a dagger into the eye of an opponent. Hearts are cut out of dead bodies.
And the fighting is full of Rambo-like relish.
From one scene:“Ramses turns to run, but Judah is on him...Ramses falls. Judah kills him with his bare hands - lifting him by the neck and snapping it suddenly. Judah gets up and faces the other mercenaries. He is a crazed, furious, dervish - explosive, a killing machine. The mercenaries have shields, swords, and shovel-like spears. Judah draws his knife. He is a fighting machine at full roar.”Like “Passion of the Christ,” “The Maccabees” assert their principles in the face of a sadistic, heathen overlord (that would be the Greek-Syrian Antiochus instead of the Roman overlordjoe eszterhas Pontius Pilate).
Background here.