Hollywood aces to tee it up on Lynn course

LYNN – Hollywood is back in Lynn – again.Barely weeks after filmmaking crews from the Bruce Willis thriller “Surrogates” packed up their equipment in downtown, another production team will take over parts of the Lawrence Gannon Municipal Golf Course today and Thursday to shoot scenes from a new Mel Gibson movie.The golf course Building Committee voted to authorize use of the facility. To appease members, the committee stipulated that either the front-nine or back-nine holes would remain open, depending on where the filmmaking was under way.The new film is called “Edge of Darkness” and based on a 1985 award-winning television mini-series aired on the British Broadcasting Corp. Internet databases established to track Hollywood news indicate Gibson, 52, will play straight-laced police homicide detective Thomas Craven, who while investigating the death of his 24-year-old activist daughter uncovers not only her secret life, but a corporate cover-up and government collusion that attracts an agent tasked with cleaning up the evidence.Robert DeNiro co-stars in the picture as an operative, according to the International Movie Database.The film marks Gibson’s first starring role since the 2002 movies “Signs” and “We Were Soldiers.” He directed 2004’s “The Passion of the Christ” and in 2006 the extravagant “Apocalypto.”Shooting on the independently financed “Edge of Darkness” began in South Boston last month. Film crews were also scheduled to shoot additional scenes at Rockport’s Cape Hedge Beach, Sept. 25 and 26.Rockport selectmen voted unanimously in August to approve a location agreement with the film-production company. As part of the contract, the company will donate $2,000 toward a planned animal shelter in Rockport.According to Rockport Town Administrator Michael Racicot, the scene reportedly features Gibson’s character returning to the beach, his daughter’s favorite childhood place, to scatter the young woman’s ashes into the sea. Earlier this year, another movie production company transformed Rockport’s famous harbor, among the most photographed in the world, into the picturesque fishing town of Sitka, Alaska.Edge of Darkness, directed by Martin Campbell, is scheduled for release in 2009.Gibson, meanwhile, has been battling to suppress rumors of infidelity and a romantic link to a Russian model and musician known only as Oksana.A Gibson spokesman said Oksana is merely “one of the artists on Mel’s recording label, Icon, and is currently in the U.S. recording a new album.”The actor made international headlines following his controversial drunken-driving arrest in Los Angeles in 2006, during which he made anti-Semitic remarks to police officers. Hollywood gossip columnists have speculated that Gibson had difficulty finding financial backing for his latest film because of those remarks.Born in Peekskill, N.Y., Gibson originally found little work as an actor in the U.S. He eventually landed a career-making role in the futuristic Australian film “Mad Max”, in which he plays the main character.