Mel Gibson’s next movie hasn’t even entered production yet, but the actor’s team is already doing damage control. On Monday, Variety reported that Gibson is set to co-star with Shia LaBeouf in Rothchild, an upcoming satire about a super-rich New York family. The title has instantly sparked comparisons to the real-life Rothschilds, a family of incredibly wealthy Jewish bankers. That, in turn, has sparked intense backlash, since Gibson is known for making wildly anti-Semitic comments in the past—most notably during his 2006 arrest on a D.U.I. charge. “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” Gibson said then. (He later issued an apology for those remarks.)

On Tuesday, Gibson’s publicist Alan Nierob issued a statement to the Daily Beast about Rothchild, saying the film had nothing to do with the real Rothschild family.

“I feel the need to spare you any embarrassment as I’m told this film is about a fictional family (hence the name ‘Rothchild’) vs the Rothschild family to which you are referring,” Nierob wrote. “Completely unrelated to your premise and angle. Hopefully this is helpful to you.”

In Rothchild, Gibson will play family patriarch Whitelaw Rothchild; Variety notes that Whitelaw is the villain of the film. LaBeouf will play family outcast Becket Rothchild, who seeks to work his way back into the family and regain his birthright. As the Daily Beast notes, LaBeouf himself is part Jewish. Stan & Ollie director Jon S. Baird will helm the project.

Over the last few years, Gibson has slowly been welcomed back to Hollywood, thanks largely to success of his 2016 film Hacksaw Ridge—which starred Andrew Garfield and won two Oscars. Gibson has since been cast in a handful of projects and has two films that will be shopped at Cannes, Variety notes: the action movie Force of Nature and the holiday movie Fatman, which will see him play Santa Claus. The latter has also been met with backlash on social media. One of the most vocal critics was Seth Rogen, who tweeted the news with this biting line: “Ho-ho-holocaust denier.”

Gibson’s father, writer Hutton Gibson, was a notorious Holocaust denier. In a 2004 interview, Mel was asked whether the Holocaust happened; the actor responded that some of his best friends “have numbers on their arms,” then said: “Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps.” But Mel also added that his father “never lied to me in his life.” The next year, Mel was tapped to develop a four-hour mini-series about the Holocaust for ABC, but the series was dropped after his anti-Semitic and racist remarks during his D.U.I. arrest were made public. He has also been accused of domestically abusing his former wife, Oksana Grigorieva, and was recorded telling her he hoped she got “raped by a pack of n---ers.” Gibson later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge and was sentenced 36 months of probation. He also paid $600 in fines and attended court-ordered counseling.

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