Mel Gibson - Icon and The Dendy

Still magic after 20 years with Mel Gibson at Icon http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000154/

Robert Lusetich, Los Angeles correspondent | May 15, 2008

LIFE has come full circle for Bruce Davey, the Sydney accountant who joined forces with Mel Gibson in the late 1980s to form what would grow into one of Hollywood's most successful independent entertainment ventures.

After 20 years of rough and tumble in the most cutthroat of businesses, where he gained a well-earned reputation for driving a hard bargain, Davey has moved into his multi-million-dollar Sydney harbourside mansion, enjoying again living in what he calls the best city in the world.

Although he has handed the day-to-day operations of Santa Monica-based Icon, the company he started with Gibson, over to Mark Gooder (who was promoted from its Australian chief) Davey is still intimately involved as chairman of the board.

Last week, he was surrounded by boxes as Icon was moving its premises into the Dendy offices in Newtown, Sydney after purchasing the arthouse cinema chain from the Becker Group for $21million in a contentious deal which was completed on April 30.

"None of this would be possible without Mel," Davey said last week as he reflected on the growth of Icon into a serious independent film and television producer, sales company, distributor and, now, exhibition company.

Their relationship stretches back to 1980, when Davey, a chartered accountant with a clientele in the entertainment industry, was asked to help a young actor. "Mel came to see me with these shoeboxes filled with papers and three years of taxes that hadn't been done," he says.

"I remember that I got him a refund of about $1200 and he thought I was a genius. I suppose it started from that."

From those beginnings, their relationship grew until Davey became Gibson's business manager. "I did have opportunities (to work exclusively) with other clients, like Air Supply and actors like Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving, but there was something about Mel. I really believed in him. I think what I liked about him was the fact that he couldn't tell a lie to save his life."

Davey says the pair got to Hollywood by accident.

"Mel wanted to make Hamlet and the (Hollywood) agent he had who was helping him with it lasted about five minutes. It's pretty hard to get someone to give you money to make Hamlet," he said. "I told him that if he wanted to make this happen, someone had to roll up their sleeves and find the (financing) and he asked me if I wanted to have a crack at it and I agreed."

The pair decided to form a company and thought about names as they sat in the study of Gibson's cattle property in NSW.

"He came up with the name," says Davey, "We were down at his farm and I told him he needed a name and that it wasn't a good idea to have Gibson in the name because he had been involved in another company (which was not successful) and he looked across his den and saw a book on Russian icons and he looks up and says, 'Let's call it, Icon'. I thought, 'That'll work."'

And work it did, though it took many years for Icon to be treated seriously.

"Once we'd done Hamlet (in 1990), Mel said, "Can we do this again?" Davey remembers.

"We spoke to the studios and Warners was happy to give him a deal, mainly because they didn't want to let him out of their sights because of (the success of the) Lethal Weapon (franchise). But they thought Icon was a joke. I'll always remember that; they didn't take us seriously at all.

"They just thought it'd be one of these vanity deals they give stars, where they pay for your overheads and kick you some money and nothing comes of it. Sort of thing where they give you an office and money just so when they want to have lunch with you, they know where to find you.

"But even then, when he was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Mel was different."

Davey said Gibson once told him the business was "about longevity".

"He says, 'While I'm an actor I want to use that (influence) to produce and direct because I don't think I'll always be an actor'," he said.

"He understood back then that he needed to have more strings to his bow. But when we went to Warners and said Mel had found a film he wanted to direct (Man Without A Face), Terry (Semel) and Bob (Daly), who were running the place back then, couldn't understand it.

"They couldn't believe that Mel wouldn't take $US15 million to make Lethal Weapon 3 but instead wanted to go and direct Men Without A Face for peanuts. They didn't get it because in Hollywood, it's all about money and Mel's not all about money. He's passionate and involved and wants to do things that have artistic integrity."

As Randall Wallace, who wrote Braveheart, which earned Gibson and Davey an Oscar, once said of Gibson: "He has not surrendered his soul to the idolatry of Hollywood."

But while Gibson has referred to himself as "a fiscal imbecile", such a charge couldn't be levelled at Davey.

Their partnership has been so successful in good part because they complement each other.

"I've learned so much from him. He really does set the tone," says Davey.

Gibson has been, of course, a lightning rod for controversy, seen by many Jews as an anti-Semite because of his interpretation of the death of Jesus in his film The Passion of the Christ and, of course, his notorious drink-driving arrest in Malibu two years ago, in which he reportedly slurred Jews.

"I know the kind of person he is," Davey, who plays his cards close to his chest, says. "He's a great guy and he sure doesn't need me to be defending him."

Before they became unfathomably rich with the success of the self-funded Passion of the Christ -- which cost about $US25 million and may end up making more than $US1 billion -- Davey and Gibson grew their company in ways few Hollywood players have done.

"We started to branch out the company really because we wanted to own our labours of love," says Davey.

"We started to see that we were paying other companies to do things we could do in-house for half the price, so we started in sales and distribution."

As a result of acquisitions in those areas, Icon now controls a lucrative library of about 250 titles.

The arthouse cinema chain Dendy also seems to be a natural fit for Icon because its upscale customer base - the so-called A/B demographic - jells nicely with the sort of sophisticated films that Icon makes and distributes.

But Davey laughs at suggestions that Icon has a grand media plan in Australia.

"We've never had a five-year plan, or a five-month plan or a five-minute plan for that matter," he says.

"From the beginning, for us it's always just been a matter of trying to capitalise on opportunities that present themselves and this was a good opportunity for us. I suppose if you want to describe our model it would be one of being opportunistic. I think Dendy is a brand that's strong in Australia and I don't believe it's been fully utilised."

Gooder underlines what he calls the "simpatico" between Icon and Dendy and says the coming months will see a marriage of the brands.

"That doesn't mean that we bought a cinema chain so we can show our films and our films only," he says.

"You have to view both entities as independent of each other, but obviously, there are great possibilities to marry them and of course we'll be doing that."

Gooder says he fully subscribes to the existing blueprint at Icon.

"There's actually a logic out of everything we do," he says.

"It's basically borne out of, 'How do you make money out of this business.' We ask ourselves that question, then we start looking for the answer."

Icon will continue growing but not in a way that changes the culture of the company.

"The last thing we want is to become a studio," says Davey.

"We don't want to become that top heavy. We want to be independent and passionate. We don't want to lose the magic."
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