Mel Gibson in nasty fight with Joe Eszterhas

I hate it when someone is fighting with Joe Eszterhas because it means that I have to spell Eszterhas and that's kinda difficult. What's also difficult, is figuring out who is right and who is wrong in this particular case. Fortunately that doesn't really matter, because they both seem like complete bleeping bleepers.

TMZ had this yesterday:

"Mel Gibson is sabotaging efforts to make a movie about Jewish biblical hero Judah Maccabee because he "hates Jews" ... this according to the film's screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. Gibson and Eszterhas had been working on the project together ... until Warner Bros. suddenly decided to pull the plug ... and nobody seemed to know why. But now, it's crystal clear - there was a MAJOR rift between Gibson and Eszterhas ... with Eszterhas firing off a harsh letter to Mel earlier this week ... in which he says point blank, "I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason you won’t make ‘The Maccabees’ is the ugliest possible one. You hate Jews.” The letter, obtained by TheWrap.com, reads, "You continually called Jews 'Hebes.' It seemed that most times when we discussed someone, you asked 'He’s a Hebe, isn’t he?' You said most 'gatekeepers' of American companies were 'Hebes' who 'controlled their bosses.'" Eszterhas adds, “You said the Holocaust was 'mostly a lot of horses**t.' You said the Torah made reference to the sacrifice of Christian babies and infants. When I told you that you were confusing the Torah with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, ... you insisted 'it's in the Torah - it's in there!' (It isn't). "He says Mel only wanted to make “The Maccabees” so he could “convert the Jews to Christianity.” In his letter, Eszterhas says he witnessed Mel rail about his ex-GF and baby mama Oksana Grigorieva ... saying, "You were raving at Oksana even after you’d reached a custody agreement over Luci." “And then you were even more explicit about your threat: “I’m going to kill her!  I’m going to have her killed!”  You said you’d become friends with two FBI agents (or former FBI agents) and they were going to help you to kill her.”

Lovely. Then Gibson responded with this letter. Via Deadline:

Joe,
I have your letter. I am not going to respond to it line by line, but I will say that the great majority of the facts as well as the statements and actions attributed to me in your letter are utter fabrications. I would have thought that a man of principle, as you purport to be, would have withdrawn from the project regardless of the money if you truly believed me to be the person you describe in your letter. I guess you only had a problem with me after Warner Brothers rejected your script.
I will acknowledge like most creative people I am passionate and intense. I was very frustrated that when you arrived at my home at the expense of both Warner Brothers and myself you hadn’t written a single word of a script or even an outline after 15 months of research, meetings, discussions and the outpouring of my heartfelt vision for this story. I did react more strongly than I should have. I promptly sent you a written apology, the colorful words of which you apparently now find offensive. Let me now clearly apologize to you and your family in the simplest of terms.
Contrary to your assertion that I was only developing Maccabees to burnish my tarnished reputation, I have been working on this project for over 10 years and it was publicly announced 8 years ago. I absolutely want to make this movie; it’s just that neither Warner Brothers nor I want to make this movie based on your script.
Honestly, Joe, not only was the script delivered later than you promised, both Warner Brothers and I were extraordinarily disappointed with the draft. In 25 years of script development I have never seen a more substandard first draft or a more significant waste of time. The decision not to proceed with you was based on the quality of your script, not on any other factor.
I think that we can agree that this should be our last communication. Mel

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