Mel Gibson's much touted big comeback with last year's dark comedy The Beaver might have fizzled at the box office, but he'll be hoping for better results with his next film, Get The Gringo, which finds him squarely back in action man mode. Take a look at the trailer below.

Now, we say box office, but from the sounds of the announcement picked up by Deadline, Gringo will be bypassing cinemas altogether in favour of a risky gamble with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on Video-On-Demand and Blu-Ray releases. It'll arrive, in the US, at least, on DirecTV May 1 and then hit other US telly providers' VOD services once DTV's exclusive period is up. After that will come the usual disc/digital download opportunities.

Formerly known as How I Spent My Summer Vacation, the film itself finds Gibson in Lethal Weapon territory, with a blend of violence, laughs and Mel beating people up (or getting hit himself) that Gibson co-wrote with director Adrian Grunberg. He plays Driver (we've heard that handle before...), a criminal who smashes across the border to Mexico during a high speed car chase with the authorities. Picked up by the local cops, he's thrown in a brutal Mexican slammer and from there mixes with dangerous gangster types while wooing a beautiful, troubled woman and bonding slowly with her son.

Lionsgate UK has the film over here, and plans to release it on May 11. There's no indication yet that this new deal will change that plan...