A new adaptation (I refuse to use the word remake here) of Fahrenheit 451 has been in the works for ten years now. I was very excited by the news that Mel Gibson was planning it as a Braveheart follow-up, as it seemed like that would mark a new and serious phase of his directing career. I wish that was something I could have been right about.

Frank Darabont was the next one to take it on, and he's been attached to it since 2001, rewriting Terry Hayes' script and being delayed by everything from Indiana Jones IV, Mission Impossible III, The Mist, and Law Abiding Citizen. SciFi Wire caught up with Darabont at the Saturn Awards, and the director / writer declared that it was really time to get on with it already ... and that it might actually get underway this time, depending on whether or not the Big Name Actor he wants signs on.

"Fahrenheit is the thing I'm trying to get up next, which is casting-dependent, so it's one of those. I'm out to somebody at the moment, fingers crossed, because, boy, do I want to make that movie. I'm not giving up. I'll die in the traces before I don't make that movie ... It's not one of those movies that are vastly expensive by any contemporary standard, but money is still money, and it's of a price that requires somebody that will justify that investment. This is definitely going to be more than The Mist, so those other considerations do come into play."

You can go crazy wondering just who that Big Actor who can pull in the money and box office might be. Could it be someone that rumors have long attached, like Tom Hanks (Darabont's pick for years), Brad Pitt, or Tom Cruise? Or could we be looking at someone newly bankable, like Johnny Depp?

Advance word on the amazing action in George Miller's The Road Warrior in 1982 was amazingly strong, even without Internet movie sites. When The Road Warrior did rampage on American movie screens, lo, the destructive path was indeed very broad and thrilling, unsuspecting audiences collectively dropped their jaws, and Mel Gibson was firmly cemented as an "A" list star.

The Road Warrior was, of course, a sequel to Miller's Mad Max, also starring Gibson, but that amazing adrenaline-fueled movie was relegated to drive-ins and Gibson's voice, deemed "too Australian," was ignominiously dubbed into "American" by another actor. The third movie in the series, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, was a bit of a letdown, though it definitely had its moments, and is probably best remembered for Tina Turner's appearance. Gibson went on to a huge career for many years, while director Miller moved on to family-friendly fare like Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet.

The last time we got to see Mel Gibson on the big screen, it was in The Singing Detective. Six years, some violent films, and an infamous arrest later, and we're finally getting another dose as he plays a homicide cop in Martin Campbell's Edge of Darkness. The film centers on a cop (Gibson) who watches his daughter (Bojana Novakovic) die, and then sets out to find the people who killed her.

Darkness is slated to hit screens later this year, and to kick off the buzz, an image has been released to Empire, which you can see in its entirety here. The image shows Gibson kneeling over a body, in front of a cop car and parts of what seems to be another totaled car, looking peeved. Try as I might, but I can't view this picture in the proper context. All I can see is a cautionary tale about what could've happened had Gibson not been pulled over by the cops that night in 2006. Cop cars, debris, and dead bodies doesn't seem like the best way to make us forget the past and focus on the present. It'd be like Lindsay Lohan trying to get back into the swing of things by playing a careless, drunken moviestar. Or Robert Downey Jr. cleaning up, and then doing Less Than Zero.

So that leads me to wonder: Can you forget about a star's real-life troubles when you see them on the big screen? Does reality fall away and leave nothing but the story, or do looks, scenarios, and other subtleties pull you out of the plot and right into memories of misconduct? What do you forgive, and what's hard to forget?

Many people think that a movie needs to avoid an R-rating in order to become a blockbuster. Most recent top earners have followed that dictum, with only four R-rated movies among last year's top 25 at the box office. Zack Snyder's 300 was a defiant exception in 2007, earning more than $456 million worldwide, and clearing the way for Snyder's R-rated dream project, Watchmen. Its content advisory warns / promises: "Strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity and language." Can such an R-rated superhero movie become a blockbuster today, especially in the wake of PG-13 smashes like The Dark Knight and Iron Man?

If the history of the movies has taught us anything, it's that people will flock to see films that they really, really want to see, no matter the rating. As evidence, here are seven R-rated films with strong, adult content that may have made some folks blanch -- but it didn't keep the flicks from becoming blockbusters.

Basic Instinct
Paul Verhoeven's thriller has it all: sex, violence, profanity, and very adult themes. The most notorious shot features Sharon Stone's, er, legs, but the flick also includes male and female nudity, intense sex scenes, stabbing, blood spattering, dozens of profanities, and relentless sexual innuendos. But it's not just a sensationalist button-pusher. Indeed, Basic Instinct lives up to its title in its dogged, sometimes earnest exploration of the basest desires known to man or woman. It may have tittilated, but it also made you think long after the credits rolled.

After covering the Oscars this past Sunday for what seemed like hours (because they were), I watched the montage of 2009 films to come before promptly shutting off my set. Well, leave it to Weinberg to point out shortly thereafter that Mel Gibson was going to appear on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and leave it to me to go ahead and grab my remote like the bell-hearing dog that I am. It wasn't anything against Kimmel -- even if I think the funniest thing he's ever done was Sarah Silverman (and we all know how that turned out) -- but out of morbid curiosity, I went ahead and put it on.

Holy hell, Kimmel and an oddly bearded Gibson were swapping "shalom" jokes and frankly discussing his infamous DUI incident before Kimmel plugged the alternate endings on the Passion of the Christ Blu-ray. Then came the capper: a glimpse of Mel's latest secretive project, which we've embedded above and found to be a surprisingly hilarious look at romance, revenge, and secret recipes.

What do you guys and girls think? Does this endear either Gibson or Kimmel the slightest in your eyes?

All this week we'll be highlighting some of our favorite scenes from Oscar-winning films and performances leading up to this year's Academy Awards on Sunday night.

Even though there are plenty of people who think Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe may not have deserved Oscar gold back in 2001, I will respectfully disagree ... and the opening scene of Gladiator is why. Say what you will about the film's hyped-up machismo, uneven pacing, or cavalcade of accents, but you have to admire a flick that in under 10 minutes can make you feel like you're ready to charge into a battle to the death. Not to mention that this scene is responsible for making the phrase "Hold the line!" something a lot cooler than just a song by Toto.

The success of Gladiator mainly rests on the shoulders of Crowe, who manages to make you give a damn about a relatively 2-D character. So even though the box-office and the Academy rarely agree, I still think Ridley and company deserved the Oscar for creating a 'thinking man's action hero'. Gladiator might not be a perfect film, but thanks to this opening scene, it has earned a permanent place on my list of movie favorites.

Gladiator trivia (via IMDB)

• Among the chanting of the Germanic hordes at the beginning of the film are samples of the Zulu war chant from the film Zulu (1964).
  
  
• The wounds on 'Russell Crowe's face after the opening battle scene are real, caused when his horse startled and backed him into tree branches.

• Mel Gibson was offered, but turned down the part of Maximus.

Here's a round-up of some stuff (and things) currently causing waves online:

-- Moviefone has launched the latest installment of Unscripted, featuring stars Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Banks discussing their new film W. using reader questions and some of their own. Additionally, above you'll find some newly-released art for the film. Heh.

-- After breaking up with Paramount, Dreamworks has officially found a new f*ck buddy in Universal, so says Variety. The two signed a seven-year worldwide distribution deal.

-- Darren Aronofsky's The Fighter looks to be in trouble. Now that the writer-director is working hard on that Robocop remake, seems this other flick is being neglected. Brad Pitt has apparently dropped out, and Mark Wahlberg -- who's been training for the role for over a year -- doesn't seem to know the film's current status. All that being said, Slashfilm claims their scouting locations in Mass.

-- A few photos of Mel Gibson on the set of Edge of Darkness have appeared online, most of which show the man going full-Diddy, forcing some woman to hold an umbrella so the sun doesn't, ya know, shine on the poor man. In case you forgot, this film marks Gibson's return to acting as a homicide detective investigating the death of his daughter. See image to the right, click to see enlarge. [via Crabbies Hollywood]

-- A theme park in the UK is actually moving forward with a ride based on the Saw films, called Saw - The Ride. I bet folks will just kill to get on it. HAR! Apparently, we're looking at a ride with "beyond vertical drop of 100-degree from a height of 100ft, as well as a rather sinister sounding "three inversions" to add to the fun." Who's down? [via IGN]

Guillaume Depardieu, the 37-year-old son of Gerard Depardieu, died today in Paris from a bout of acute pneumonia. Depardieu, who's starred in upwards of 20 films, struggled with drugs and drinking over the years.

A few new images of Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac in the new film Soul Men have arrived in the Cinematical inbox. Check them out in the gallery below.

But was he ever considering it in the first place? Not long ago it seemed a Lethal Weapon 5 was all but a lock, what with Shane Black writing the script and Columbus Short supposedly in talks to play Danny Glover's son -- but now, according to a recent interview with Richard Donner in the LA Times, it looks like the whole thing might just go away. Thank God. That's because, in Donner's world, Mel Gibson has already passed on the project. (And here we thought Glover passed over a year ago.) The director notes, "Mel turned it down. I would like to think that Mel turned it down because I wasn't involved. Knowing Mel, I would like to think that. Would that be the kind of thing he does? It sure would be."

Though "Gibson's people" refused to comment, the LA Times is pretty confident in their findings. Donner, who directed all four previous Lethal Weapon films, seems a bit "I toldja so" in the interview, regarding Warners decision to follow Joel Silver's lead: "It's too bad, actually, because Channing Gibson, who wrote the fourth one, and Mike Riva, a designer on three of them, and myself and Derek [Hoffman, an associate at The Donner Company] had an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie. But we weren't given the opportunity and I think maybe I could have convinced Mel to do it. But Warners chose to go with Joel Silver." He later adds, "Yes, the project is pretty much dead in the water unless someone had the sense to come to me."

Of course, Donner could be talking out his rear end ... though, on the surface, it seems like a reach for both Gibson and Glover to agree to a fifth film, especially one without Donner behind the camera. But what do you think? Would you actually be down for a Lethal Weapin 5? Or are these guys just too old for this sh*t?

If you read my posts regularly, you might be under the impression that the only movies that make me truly weak in the knees are Marvel adaptations. But my heart belongs more to rogue cops than it does superheroes, and if I could have my film wish, it would be for a renaissance of the action/thriller. And you know, I think it might be on its way ...

First comes a story from The Hollywood Reporter that Paramount has hired Josh Olson to adapt Lee Child's novel One Shot. It's the ninth in Child's Jack Reacher series -- why they aren't adapting the first, I have no idea. Now, I haven't read the series, but from all accounts Reacher is the kind of man we haven't seen onscreen since Harry Callahan or Wendell "Bud" White. And that's why Olson (who was also behind the adaptation of A History of Violence) took the job: "I had just finished watching the first two Dirty Harry movies on Blu-ray. And I thought, 'No one's making movies like that anymore.' It coincided perfectly. It's just the kind of movie that I haven't seen in a while. It's a tough, smart, action-oriented thriller." (In a really funny twist, I was watching Dirty Harry last weekend and thinking the same thing -- and also how much I want to date Clint Eastwood circa 1971.)

Obviously, One Shot isn't enough to revive the genre, but Entertainment Weekly reports that rumors continue to gather around Lethal Weapon 5, particularly with Shane Black's Cold Warrior catching everyone's interest. Seems he's down for writing and directing the fifth installment, though all waits on the approval of Mel Gibson. I'm intrigued by the new story details, as it introduces a pair of young New York cops. Now, if Lethal Weapon 5 was more of a reboot/origin story for two new characters who could carry some films of their own, well, that would be pretty darn cool.