Firemen run bravely into burning buildings. Mariners steer sailboats straight-on into vicious, dangerous headwinds. And, according to that great interlocutor of the human condition, Cedric the Entertainer, white people have a proclivity for getting mass-murdered due to an unfailing need to wander blindly towards danger just to find out what all the fuss is about.

All three are examples of risky, counterintuitive behavior — in other words, exactly the sort of decision-making that Mel Gibson seems to be utilizing in his latest bid at post-scandal rehabilitation. Deadline reported yesterday on the surprising news that Gibson — last seen (or, judging by the box-office receipts, unseen) with his hand up a beaver — was teaming with equally infamous screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct, Jade) on a historical epic about legendary Jewish warrior Judah Maccabee, a head-scratching, yarmulke-raising development that instantly puts Gibson’s long history of saying terrible, anti-semitic things in a different context. (For example, when he told his arresting officer in his 2006 DUI arrest “The fucking Jews ... are responsible for all the wars in the world,” could it have been he was saying it with admiration?)

Posted at 10:45 AM

Russell Crowe will join Mark Wahlberg in Allen Hughes' Broken City as a mayor who hires a private detective (Wahlberg) to spy on his wife, whom he rightfully suspects of cheating. The role of Crowe's wife has not yet been cast, but we have a suggestion. Grade: B [Deadline]

In other Russell-related news, Warner Bros. has given foppish flop peddler Russell Brand a first-look development deal and his own production company, which the Arthur star has christened Branded Films, possibly because Tax Write-Down Productions was taken. Grade: D [Deadline]

Posted at 9:30 AM