Mel Gibson takes 'Edge' off acting hiatus

Hollywood -- Mel Gibson has agreed to star in the U.S.-produced "Edge of Darkness," marking a return to the front of the camera for the first time since 2002.

Martin Campbell will direct the feature adaptation of the six-hour 1985 BBC miniseries, which Campbell also directed, Variety reported Tuesday.

Gibson will play a police investigator whose activist daughter is killed. As the character delves deeper into the case, he uncovers systemic corruption that led to his daughter's death.

Gibson's last feature roles were "Signs" and "We Were Soldiers," spending intervening years as a director, first on "The Passion of the Christ" in 2004 and then "Apocalypto" in 2006.

Pairing up after their Oscar-winning "The Departed," William Monahan wrote the script for "Edge of Darkness" and Graham King is producing the film through his GK Films in Santa Monica, Calif.

Monahan and King also are collaborating on a bio-pic of Jim Keene, who traded a prison sentence to go undercover at a maximum security hospital for
the criminally insane, Variety reported.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.