Mel Gibson has gotten too old (51) and too weathered-looking to play a sexy smoothie in a Maverick sequel, as he’s indicated he’d like to do. He’s gotten chunky-framed and his hair has been thinning like crazy. Plus he’s regarded as too much of a nutter to play light and frothy — he can’t go home again after the drunken Malibu rant. Gibson was always great at playing eccentric nutjobs along the lines of Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon — that was always his home turf because he’s always been in touch with that side of himself, and he probably has no choice but to stick with that now. I remember describing Richard Donner‘s original Maverick (1994) as “a $75 million dollar Elvis Presley film.”
