Before director Richard Donner passed away back in July of 2021, he had been developing a fifth and final entry in the Lethal Weapon film franchise, saying that he, as the director of the first four films, had a “privilege and duty to put it to bed.” When Donner died, he passed that duty over to franchise star Mel Gibson – not a bad choice, given that Gibson has directed some major box office hits himself, and won the Best Director Oscar for Best Picture winner Braveheart. Back in 2022, Gibson assured us that Lethal Weapon 5 is going to happen one of these days. Now, during an interview on the Inspire Me podcast, Gibson has revealed that he has gotten the screenplay – which has been worked on by the likes of Richard Wenk (The Equalizer) and Jez Butterworth (Edge of Tomorrow) – to a point where he’s happy with it.
Gibson said (with thanks to MovieWeb for the transcription), “I’m going to direct the fifth film in the Lethal Weapon series. You know, Richard Donner, who did the other four, sadly passed away. He was a good friend, and he kind of tasked me with carrying the flag home on that one. It’ll be an honor for me to do that. He [Richard Donner] had gotten a fair way into the screenplay, so we’ve used what was there, and we kept poking at it, working at it a little. I’m pretty happy with it, it’s good, I had a lot of fun doing it.“
Gibson confirmed that Lethal Weapon 5 will retain the sense of humor the franchise is known for, while also dealing with some “hard issues.”
Gibson would conclude the update by saying that audiences can expect the same brand of humor that has been injected throughout the long history of the Lethal Weapon franchise, but that the new film will also deal with some “hard issues.” That brings to mind a quote franchise co-star Danny Glover gave back at the start of 2020, when he said, “I don’t want to give away the plot on the script that I read, but I found the plot had very strong relevance to some of the things that are happening today.“
It was previously said that Lethal Weapon 5 had kind of gotten “lost in the shuffle” at Warner Bros. when the company merged with Discovery Inc. in mid-2022, but here’s hoping Gibson will be able to get it into production soon.
Are you looking forward to seeing Mel Gibson and Danny Glover play Riggs and Murtaugh one more time in Lethal Weapon 5? Share your thoughts on this project by leaving a comment below.