Mel Gibson is determined to get Lethal Weapon 5 to the big screen
Mel Gibson has revealed that he is still keen to make a fifth Lethal Weapon movie if the project can ever escape development hell.
Mel Gibson remains committed to making Lethal Weapon 5.
The 70-year-old actor has revealed that he and screenwriter Richard Wenk have completed the script for the new movie following the death of director Richard Donner at the age of 91 in 2021, and he thinks it is better than the previous pictures.
In an interview with Collider, Gibson – who plays police officer Martin Riggs in the buddy cop franchise – said: "Donner realised it. I think he did all of those films, and sadly he's passed away. But he sort of knew what he had, and Shane Black wrote a good script.
"It was timely, you know. It was '80s. We were used to these tough guys on film who kind of had it all together, but they were tough and two-dimensional in a lot of ways.
"So this one was better because the main protagonists in the story both had kind of vulnerabilities, and one was crazy, and the other was scared, and it went a little deeper than the usual action flick."
Gibson explained how he and Wenk were guided by Donner as they completed the script but expressed disappointment that the project is trapped in "industrial film hell".
The Mad Max star said: "There were good things about each one, but as you say, they tend to get diluted out there a lot.
"And, you know, Donner, when he was 90 years old, was working on the fifth, and of course he passed away in the middle. 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 the others. But it's tied up in some kind of industrial film hell that you can't extract it from to make it."
Gibson indicated that the fifth Lethal Weapon movie would be a character-driven story featuring Riggs and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover).
The Braveheart star said: "It only harks back to the others in the minimal way, but it's a story all on its own.
"The 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. 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. Like, let's say for instance, Apocalypto.
"It's a foot chase, right? But it's kind of filmed like a car chase. So it still has all the elements of what was in the other films, but not nearly so complicated. But it deals more about the people in it."
Gibson also revealed that Donner asked him to take over as director in the event that he was unable to finish making Lethal Weapon 5.
The two-time Oscar winner said: "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.'"
