Disney proceeds with Gibson film

The Walt Disney Co. is proceeding with plans to distribute “Apocalypto,” a Mayan-language film directed by Mel Gibson that is scheduled for release in December, a studio spokeswoman said Friday.

That confirmation refutes recent media and Internet reports that family-oriented Disney wanted to sell distribution rights to the film to another studio to distance itself from the controversy over anti-Semitic remarks Gibson made when he was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in Malibu.

“It’s not true,” Disney spokeswoman Heidi Trotta said of the reports. Disney had no role in producing the film, a thriller with a cast of unknowns that is set in in an ancient Mayan settlement and told in the Yucatec dialect with subtitles.