The following letter was recovered from Mel Gibson’s trash can, which had been haphazardly placed at the end of his driveway.

Mel,

We know that this has been a difficult time for you. But, as regrettable as this feels, we would be remiss if we didn’t express our utter disappointment in the work you gave us for Edge of Darkness.

Granted, we hired you despite your onscreen performances taking a more sober tenor (What Women Want, Chicken Run and Signs). So, initially, we accepted your performance as Detective Thomas Craven without expecting you to channel Detective Martin Riggs for the project. We all discussed it as a “wouldn’t that be cool?” scenario with no real hope of it happening. Frankly, we didn’t think you had it in you anymore.

And then came these rants.

Based on the phone calls that have gone public recently, it’s clear you shortchanged us. The unhinged passion with which you berated your ex-wife in those recordings suggests to us that you held back, and this is something that we cannot forgive.

Perhaps it’s our fault. Maybe we should have written a Russian Jew into the script as the villain. Perhaps our director was delinquent in seeking out the proper motivation for your ire to flourish. Maybe we should have written a more Riggs-esque character for you (After all, Thomas Craven’s a widower whose daughter also dies, so why wouldn’t he be suicidal?).

Of course, we’re being sarcastic. We’re the producers, therefore infallible.

You, on the other hand, are lucky that there are no legal measures for us to exercise. Besides, suing you for underperforming will only bring you further media attention, not to mention offers from other producers for movies that you’ll perform admirably in just to make us look ridiculous. This is Hollywood; we simply cannot allow you to make us look ridiculous.

In all honesty, we’re taking this disappointment on the chin, chalking it up to bad luck. But heed this warning: the next time we want to cast you in something set in Boston, one of the most reprehensible major cities in the world, you better make sure you honor your agreement (and the city) with some of that reprehensible behavior that has so liberally peppered your everyday life over the past several years.

Let’s do lunch,

The Producers of “Edge of Darkness”