Mel Gibson has surprised Hollywood once again and this time it doesn’t involve a rant against the Jews.  Mel’s movie Apocalypto, according to earlier reports, is winning the weekend box office.

Call it a Hollywood shocker. Despite scandal, an R-rating, subtitles because of an ancient dialect, no stars, and direct competition from movieland AAA-listers Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto won today’s matinees this opening weekend, I’m told.

Today’s development bears out my reporting back on December 1st when I was told that early tracking showed Mel’s movie (playing in 2,465 theaters) edging ahead. Based on today’s matinees, the No. 2 spot went to Sony’s The Holiday (in 2,610 playdates), a date movie from director-writer Nancy Meyer, known for capturing that man-woman zeitgeist.

Today’s result is exactly what Disney — which had been under pressure to dump Mel’s self-financed Mayan epic after his drunken anti-Semitic stumble — was hoping for: that Gibson had become a brand name and that his The Passion of the Christ and Braveheart audiences would reward him with their moviegoing loyalty (and not hold his drunken anti-Semitic ranting against him).

It will be pretty amazing if Apocalypto tops the weekend box office considering all of Gibson’s troubles in the past few months. Many in Hollywood doubted him on The Passion of the Christ and lost their jobs when it made hundreds of millions of dollars. It looks like there might be some pink slips given out on Monday as well.