There are certain films that look incredible — on paper.

Those films are often put on the “Black List,” a register of the most-loved unproduced screenplays in Hollywood as determined by a survey of Hollywood machers. (Think the Associated Press and Coaches’ college football polls, but for people who earnestly say, “Let’s do lunch.”) Flight Risk, penned by rookie screenwriter Jared Rosenberg, made the Black List in 2020, and now Mel Gibson, in his first directorial effort in nearly a decade, has brought it to screens in the freezing doldrums of January.