Comeback Tour

Daddy’s Home 2 Box Office Proves Mel Gibson May Be Immune to the Weinstein Effect

The Gibson comeback tour continues.
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By Jason LaVeris/Getty Images

After a slew of sexual-harassment and assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein went public last month, the floodgates were opened. Every day since, new accusations have come out about some of Hollywood’s biggest hotshots—and the consequences have come swiftly. The release of Louis C.K.’s new movie and Netflix special were canceled. Kevin Spacey’s role in the kidnapping drama All the Money in the World is being re-shot with Christopher Plummer, weeks before its scheduled release.

But Mel Gibson, a man whose anti-Semitic remarks and domestic violence charge are on the public record, where anyone can find them—in 2011, he pleaded no contest to a charge of misdemeanor battery of his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva—can still make bank at the weekend box office.

This weekend saw the release of two new films from major studios: 20th Century Fox’s Agatha Christie adaptation, Murder on the Orient Express, and Paramount’s comedy Daddy’s Home 2, the sequel to 2015’s Daddy’s Home. While Thor: Ragnarok still reigns supreme, in its opening weekend, Daddy’s Home 2 made back almost half of its $69 million budget, with a take of $30 million over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It’s the fourth-biggest opening, Forbes notes, of any Paramount release since the first Daddy’s Home ($38.7m), behind only Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows ($32m), Star Trek: Beyond ($58m), and Transformers: The Last Knight ($44m)—all big-budget franchise sequels.

Daddy’s Home 2 also stars Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, and John Lithgow—but Mel Gibson is billed near the top. Its opening-weekend success seems to show that both Hollywood and the public are willing to welcome the actor back into the fold, after a period of shunning that began shortly after his 2006 D.U.I. arrest and continued largely until the release of last year’s Hacksaw Ridge, a film Gibson directed that was nominated for six Oscars. Daddy’s Home 2 marks Gibson’s first on-screen role in three years and his first family comedy in quite a while—and while the movie has been pummeled by critics (it’s earned just a 16 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes), its box-office receipts and Gibson’s upcoming film slate (he’s got a thriller with Vince Vaughn and a drama with Sean Penn on deck) seem to indicate that he’s once again being embraced by audiences and studios. Is this a portent for redemption tours to come? Only time will tell—but perhaps it means we should brace ourselves for figures like Kevin Spacey and Louis C.K. to attempt similar returns to the public stage in the not-so-distant future.