Mel Gibson gave an update on the long-gestating “Lethal Weapon 5″ this week, saying the sequel is “tied up in some kind of industrial film hell that you can’t extract it from to make it.”
Gibson says that he and the film’s writer, Richard Wenk, finished the script following the death of “Lethal Weapon” franchise director Richard Donner in July 2021 at the age of 91.
“So I got together with the writer, and we completed it thinking, ‘What would Donner do?’ That’s what we were thinking in the room, and I think that the fifth script is better than all of the others,” Gibson said in an interview with Collider during Fan Expo Boston on Sunday. “But it’s tied up in some kind of industrial film hell that you can’t extract it from to make it.”
Gibson says when the script was completed that the film was set to go into production, “but it just never got the wheels under it.” Now, “Lethal Weapon” franchise studio Warner Bros. is one of the assets at the center of a plagued acquisition by David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance.
“I think Warner’s got into some quicksand at that time… so it got buried somewhere, and now I think this David Ellison guy over at Paramount has absorbed or will absorb Warners, or it looks like he will,” Gibson said. “And maybe, maybe they’ll take the chains off that one, and you might see that in another year or so.”
The first “Lethal Weapon” debuted in 1987, further launching the Hollywood careers of Gibson, writer Shane Black and the comedic, action-packed buddy cop format. Gibson co-starred as LAPD detective Martin Riggs opposite Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh. Three more sequels followed, in addition to a prequel TV series that ran from 2016-2019 with Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans as a young Gibson and Glover.
In this fifth “Lethal Weapon” film, Gibson says the lead characters “are quite different.”
“They’re older. One’s retired. The other one’s on a desk job. He’s putting on too much weight, and it’s low-tech,” Gibson said. “It doesn’t get into the big explosions and all this sort of stuff. But it still has the energy and, I think, drive of a big action film.”
Gibson says his intention would be to direct the film himself, which he says was the late Donner’s wish: “Donner, God rest his soul, he said to me in this deep voice, he said, ‘Hey, kid, if I drop off the perch, you’ll take this over, won’t you?’ I said, ‘Shut up! You’re not going anywhere.’ And of course he did. And, you know, when he passed away, I didn’t say anything. But apparently he had told other people that too, so they all came to me and said, ‘You direct it.’ I said, ‘Yeah, okay.’”
Representatives for Warner Bros. Discovery did not immediately respond to request for comment Wednesday.
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