I can’t decide if Mel Gibson playing a guy who walks around with a Beaver puppet attached to his hand is amusing or disturbing. You can decide for yourself because Splash News (via Coming Soon) has a new image of Gibson on the New York City set of The Beaver. See the full image over there.

The flick certainly has one thing going for it; the script written by Kyle Killen made it onto the 2008 Black List and was eyed by top comedic talent like Steve Carell and Jim Carrey. It’s about a guy named Walter who’s the CEO of a failing toy company. He finds comfort in a hand puppet, which he wears nonstop. The photo shows Walter with his Beaver making an appearance on the Today Show. This could go two ways; either America falls in love with the guy or Matt Lauer goes Tom Cruise on him and calls him glib. That blurry lady in the pink shirt in the background looks like she’s cracking a smile so I’m placing my bets on the former.

Aside from having difficulties getting passed The Passion of The Christ drama and erasing his mugshot from my memory, I’m really excited to see if Gibson can pull this off. Naturally, some of my favorite Gibson films are Signs, The Patriot and Braveheart so it’ll be interesting watching him leave suspense behind and showing moviegoers his funny side. It’ll also be great to see what Jodie Foster is capable of behind the lens. I’ve never seen her films Little Man Tate or Home for the Holidays, so The Beaver, will be my first Foster helmed experience.