Lethal Weapon 5 May Be Happening With An Unexpected Director
Just for some perspective, Danny Glover was only 40 years old when he delivered the classic line as Roger Murtaugh in the original "Lethal Weapon," "I'm too old for this s**t." That was in 1987 and, well, here we are all these years later as the buddy-cop franchise just refuses to go silently into that good night. We've received three sequels over the years with varying degrees of diminishing returns (as /Film's Chris Evangelista laid out in his ranking, the fourth film ended things on a bit of a sour note.) This latest update, however, might just have you wishing that it did end up retiring for good.
Rumors of "Lethal Weapon 5" have been swirling around for decades — at one point, the original creative trio of Glover, Mel Gibson, and director Richard Donner were eager to take a crack at a fifth film back in 2017. By the next year, Donner had indicated that the project was dead in the water. Last we heard, though, franchise producer Dan Lin indicated in 2020 that the wheels were back in motion to deliver at least one last hurrah for Murtaugh and Gibson's Martin Riggs. There have been all sorts of reasons why this has never actually come together at this point, from Donner's passing in 2021 to the awfully hard-to-forget fact that Gibson is still persona non grata in many circles, stemming from his infamously racist comments and anti-Semitic tirade back in 2006.
Despite all that, a new update seemingly confirms that "Lethal Weapon 5" is happening ... with none other than Gibson slated to direct.
Mel Gibson confirms he's directing Lethal Weapon 5
While appearing on the Inspire Me podcast series (via Collider), Mel Gibson dropped the bombshell that not only is a fifth "Lethal Weapon" movie in the works, but that he'll return to star in and direct the sequel. The original film was an instant hit and gave audiences plenty of reasons to love the prickly dynamic between misfit LAPD detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh, neither of whom could stand the other as their partner but steadily became a dream team over the course of a particularly action-packed case. It was a classic buddy-cop dynamic that set the mold for countless imitators to come, but the franchise always struggled to reach the same heights as the original. According to Gibson, however, this next attempt will serve as a tribute to the late Richard Donner:
"I'm gonna direct the fifth film in the 'Lethal Weapon' series. Richard Donner, who did the other four, sadly passed away and he was a good friend, and he kind of tasked me with carrying the flag home on that one. So it'll be an honor for me to do that."
"[Donner] had gotten a fair way into writing the screenplay and we've used what was there. We kept kind of poking at it, working it and I'm pretty happy with it, it's good, I had a lot of fun doing it."
In describing the tone for this next film, Gibson promised a return to the "Lethal Weapon" roots, saying, "It's funny, but it's also pretty serious too, it tackles a couple of hard issues, so I'm looking forward to it." There's no word on the plot or cast, but stay tuned. Either way, this is bound to stir up debate.