Though his next epic will most likely be categorized as a historically based action-drama, actor/director Mel Gibson scares enough people for me to cover his upcoming Viking project. And, besides, I’m like beyond 100% certain it’s going to be insanely awesome, especially in the hands of the guy who has given us Braveheart, The Passion, and Apocalypto.

The film is being written by William Monahan (The Departed) and will star Leonardo DiCaprio.

Gibson spoke about the film during a recent press tour for Martin Campbell’s revenge-thriller Edge of Darkness:

I want a Viking to scare you.  I don’t want a Viking to say, “I’m going to die with a sword in my hand.”  I don’t want to hear that.  It pulls the rug out from under you.  I want to see somebody who I have never seen before speaking low guttural German who scares the living shit out of me coming up to my house.  What is that like?  What would that have been like?

I think it’s going to be English—the English that would have been spoken back then—and Old Norse. Whatever the 9th century had to offer. I’m going to give you real.