I wish that were true, but it's all about the money. Why else remove the R rating, that could have been done beforehand. This opens up another audience. That opens up more purse strings in the dvd market.
Money is power and people get lost in both very quickly.
When Gibson tried to give credibility to the People's Choice Awards ( see my comment above}, I saw some real PR at work!
His move to remove the R rating is a shrewd business move that corrects for what in hindsight was a poor business move (so much violence that it carried an R rating at the theaters), and makes the film more accessible. He initially underestimated how many people would get scared away by the R rating AND the MSM's hypoctritical criticism of the violence (while the "Kill Bills" get a pass-zheesh). If he had somehow made it PG-13 from the start he might have had the #1 box office move of all time.
Why shouldn't he be congratulated for a midcourse correction?
I should also add that I trust Gibson to do something productive and meaningful with the money instead of, say, sending it up his nose, or wasting it on ostentatious living.
And what's wrong with opening it up to another audience, especially when he was getting feedback from "truckloads" of letters, cards, ect...saying that some didn't take their family members to see it because of the violence?
He didn't do it in the first place, because he wanted to depict it as it was. Not sanitize it, as many others in the past did.
The movie's for everyone. He wanted everyone to see it. So if there was another way for him to introduce it to those who didn't see it the first time, why not cater to what was asked of him?
I fail to see your point on "it's all about the money." The judgement on that is between he and God. Not we who sit back in the rafters and can only speculate, usually without all of the facts.
And if it were, so what? He'll put it back into his company, charity, or whatever he choses. He's making a living. That's a problem?