Apocalypto Plunge

Previously I promised more on the shocking box office collapse of Mel Gibson 's Apocalypto movie. I still am perplexed by it. After all, the common belief is that Mel Gibson has a huge and quite fanatical fan base, he is a charismatic leader, he is a proven box office superstar and Apocalypto had almost uniformly fawning reviews from critics focusing on the "action" aspects of the film.

Apocalypto started out like a mega-blockbuster. Number one at the box-office beating out Blood Diamond.

So what happened? Just two weeks out- total collapse. According to boxofficemojo.com, it is not in the top ten anymore, eclipsed by the likes of Happy Feet, The Holiday and Rocky Balboa.

Here is an analysis of the situation, and it goes way beyond general disgust with Mel Gibson the man.

Most importantly, it seems all the assumptions were wrong. It was generally assumed Mel Gibson has a large following of like-minded bigots. It turns out not true. The "Passion" crowd actually was made up of a lot of decent religious people duped by Mel Gibson to make a fortune. They did not turn out in droves for Apocalypto as everyone, especially Mel Gibson, expected. What happened it seems is that there is only a small number of Mel Gibson "true believers" left out there. Even they went out the first weekend and came home pretty disappointed with Apocalypto. Their friends therefore did not turn out.

So Mel Gibson Lesson #1 is, Mel Gibson's like-minded following is not as huge as commonly believed.

Secondly, the movie just was not all that good. It had a lot of action and fake blood spurts. However, nobody wants that for a holiday movie. What was Mel Gibson thinking? There is a theory that he thought it was a Jesus allegory, hence Christmas release. Nobody else saw his vision though. Most people saw it as a mere slasher flick.

So Mel Gibson Lesson #2 is, people want to be entertained at the theater, not shamelessly exploited.

Thirdly, Mel Gibson has immense success in the past by stirring up ethnic tensions as a PR technique. This is what makes decent people uncomfortable with Mel Gibson the man. It is not just a small inner demon, it is just who this man is. He tried workin' it again with his famous August 2006 "I own Malibu" tirade. He also was counting on the Native American community resisting the film as demeaning. As for his ethnic exploitation tactic, didn't work this time ... fool me once, not twice. Native American leaders, having learned from how resisting Mel's PR machine backfired last time with Passion, simply didn't fall into the trap.

So Mel Gibson lesson #3 is: Mel Gibson "We Won't be Fooled Again"... and again ... and again. Outa here with you.

The bottom line actually is a tragedy: Mel Gibson got so rich off his nastiness before that even though he and his distributor are losing money on Apocalypto, this villain will not die. Two years from now when his next film is in the same old PR spin zone, we'll be back too :).