Mel Owes: Screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald's misadventures in faith-based filmmaking continued Tuesday, when his second attempt to sue Mel Gibson for a cut of Passion of the Christ's $612 million global gross hit LA Superior Court. His first effort was rebuffed by a judge who said his complaint "lacked specificity and seemed to take a 'chain letter' approach" — although as we reported in February, the plaintiff's charge that Gibson and Co. "cobbled gobbles of money" from his undercompensated wares struck us as more sing-songy than anything else. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald's specificity literally doubled since then, with the jilted writer now seeking $10 million dollars in damages. We have yet to review the complaint itself, however, which we anticipate should reach us soon after the 10 people who received it yesterday attach postage and pass it along to their own selected 10. If this one bears any resemblance at all to the last one, we think we're in that group. [AP]

Benedict Fitzgerald was the screenwriter selected by Mel Gibson in the spring of 2001 to write The Passion of the Christ. By all accounts, the process was a bloodletting, each subsequent rewrite returned awash in red-ink suggestions of, "Way more flesh rending here," "Watch out for those tricky Aramaic verb tenses!" and, "Maybe add, 'Don't blame us. This is all the Jews' fault!'...Or is that too on the nose?" Eventually, a draft was delivered that would become the blueprint for one of the most successful independent films of all time: a $30 million-budgeted production that returned $612 million in worldwide box office receipts. Yesterday, Fitzgerald filed suit against Gibson, accusing Gibson of fraud and breach of contract, and demanding no less than $5 million in damages from the Malibu land czar: