13 Castings For New Movies That Prove Hollywood Has Gone Insane

13. Mel Gibson As Dr James Murray

Film: The Professor And The Madman

Given Mel Gibson's recent body of work, you'd think he was firmly inside the "veteran action hero" category of actors, along with Liam Neeson, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis. Aside from the horribly under-rated The Beaver in 2011, everything he's done since 2010 has been in the ilk of Blood Father and Get The Gringo, and if he wasn't a hugely talented director, you'd be forgiven for thinking his trajectory was heading towards direct-to-DVD fare.

So to see him playing Dr James Murray - the original chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary - in a film adaptation of the story of his relationship with murderer and lunatic asylum inmate William Chester Minor (who contributed more than 10,000 entries) is a little... jarring.

You'd expect someone more classically trained, but then Gibson bought the rights, so he can cast who he wants.

Will It Work?

It gets forgotten, but Gibson is still a good dramatic actor, and while he's not played anything like this for a long time, he might well surprise us all.