Mel Gibson's Maccabees Film Put on Hold Credit: Mike Marsland/Getty Images. Mel Gibson's film about a Jewish warrior has been put on hold by Warner Bros. in the wake of his very public feud with the project's screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas. Variety quoted a rep for the studio as saying, "We are analyzing what to do with the project." TheWrap.com this week posted a letter written by Eszterhas to Gibson in which he claimed, among other things, that the actor was involved in "The Maccabees" "in an attempt to deflect continuing charges of anti-Semitism which have dogged you, charges which have crippled your career." Gibson responded with his own letter, posted on Deadline.com, in which he denied the allegation and said Eszterhas" script for the film had been rejected because it was "substandard." The Maccabees was to be based on the life of Judah Maccabee, who led a Jewish revolt against the Greek-Syrian armies in the second century B.C.