Mel Gibson Almost Played Odin in Marvel Studios' THOR Movies

Mel Gibson's name has been connected to superhero movies ever since he was initially wanted to play Wolverine in the first X-Men movie, and a couple of years ago, Robert Downey Jr. made headlines saying that he wanted Gibson to direct Iron Man 4, and that was after Gibson's racist tirade. While at the Cannes Film Festival promoting his new movie Blood Father, the Aussie actor revealed that he was approached by Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios for a role in front of the camera in the MCU:

“Yeah, long time ago, to play Thor’s dad,” Gibson told The Guardian when they asked him if he'd been approached to star in a superhero film. “But I didn’t do it.” Anthony Hopkins ended up taking that role, and brought a the thundering Shakespearean quality to the character that I'm not sure Gibson could have replicated. It might have been interesting to see his take on Odin, but I think he burned bridges with a large audience after his off-screen rants.

In the interview, Gibson also spoke about the state of modern superhero films:

“Some are good. Some are kind of funny … ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ Or the first ‘Iron Man.’ And some of them are just like [retreads]. I mean you can watch them do Spider-Man five times … There is a slight shift in film. But, then again, I think all films are suffering from people not being able to now open them with their name. It’s a different kind of business these days...I think you used to get more variety of stories, films and performances. You had more of a chance of a profound film experience. But that’s not gone. I think that has been relegated to the independent world – but they have to do it twice as fast for half the money.”

Like it or not, the actor/director has been given yet another chance in Hollywood, and his newest directorial effort, Hacksaw Ridge, is nearly complete, so we'll probably be seeing that one hit theaters sometime this fall.