(Credits: Far Out / Steve Kalinsky / Gorup de Besanez)
Sat 31 January 2026 19:15, UK
Hollywood has thrown up plenty of unlikely collaborators that nobody would ever put together in a million years when using such things as common sense and logic, with Mel Gibson and Bono making for one of modern cinema’s most head-scratching pairings.
It’s weird on paper, and it was hilarious in practice, mostly because Gibson actively trashed the movie they’d teamed up to make when he was supposed to be promoting it. The fallen star’s candour has gotten the better of him several times, but at least this was one of the less offensive examples.
How on earth did the stars align for a two-time Academy Award-winning actor, filmmaker, and A-list superstar to end up working with a bestselling musician who’s rarely spotted without his sunglasses? That’s the magic of cinema, baby, even if the end result was anything but.
In the late 1980s, Bono devised the concept for a feature film. While shooting the video for ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ in downtown Los Angeles, the Rosslyn Hotel can be seen in the background, which was apparently enough to give him an idea. More than a decade later, production began on The Million Dollar Hotel, with the title derived from the building’s nickname, and the action unfolding within.
For coming up with the premise, Bono received a story credit alongside Nicholas Klein, who wrote the screenplay. He was also an executive producer, with U2 contributing three original songs to the soundtrack, along with a couple from the man born Paul Hewson as a solo artist, backed by The Million Dollar Hotel Band.
The story tracks the trials and tribulations of a disparate group of characters in the titular building, played by the likes of Tim Roth, Milla Jovovich, Peter Stormare, and Jeremy Davies, with Bono making an uncredited cameo as a lobby dweller. Gibson, who also produced through his Icon Entertainment banner, plays an FBI agent in what amounts to an extended guest spot.
Directed by Wim Wenders, remarkably, The Million Dollar Hotel fared miserably among critics, but not enough to prevent it from inexplicably winning the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Ahead of its debut in Australian theatres in November 2000, Gibson called the picture “as boring as a dog’s ass.”
As he’s developed a habit of doing, though, he eventually apologised for his actions. “It was at the end of a day where I had done 6,000 interviews, some guy was ragging on the film, and it just slipped out,” he claimed. “Later, I thought, ‘God, why did I say that? I’m an idiot! I produced this film. I’m distributing it!’ It was pretty thoughtless of me, because a lot of people worked very hard on that film.”
Technically, he’s not wrong in calling it as boring as a dog’s ass, because he’s not far off. Unfortunately, it’s never a wise idea for a star and producer to say that about something they’ve made before audiences have had a chance to see it, with Gibson conceding that, “I really regret saying that,” and he’d “written a lot of apology letters about it,” which still doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
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