Lethal Weapon 5: Mel Gibson reveals first details about the sequel's plot
The actor and director also talks about his approach regarding the action
Update on the fifth installment of the "Lethal Weapon" series: Mel Gibson has now spoken about the planned sequel – and revealed the first details about the plot of "Lethal Weapon 5. " During Fan Expo Boston, the actor and director revealed in an interview with Collider how the protagonists are faring. He also commented on the approach to the action-packed material.
The fourth and, so far, final "Lethal Weapon" film featuring the cop duo Martin Riggs (played by Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) was released 28 years ago. According to Gibson, the new installment "only harks back to the others in the minimal way." Essentially, though, "it's a story all on its own." Regarding the characters and the action elements, he said:
"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. [...] 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."
Mel Gibson wants to direct Lethal Weapon 5 himself
A fifth installment of "Lethal Weapon" has been in the works for years, but has been stuck in so-called development hell for quite some time. In other words, the project is at a standstill, with no real progress being made by the film studio. Even Gibson can't say at this point whether that will change in the foreseeable future. If it were up to him, however, he would direct "Lethal Weapon 5" himself. This is due in no small part to Richard Donner, who directed the previous four films and passed away in 2021 at the age of 91. According to Gibson, Donner asked him to take the helm for "Lethal Weapon 5." He wants to fulfill this wish for the late director.
Donner had already been working on the fifth installment of the "Lethal Weapon" series. After the filmmaker's death, Gibson sat down with screenwriter Richard Wenk to finish the project, as he explained to Collider:
"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."
The first film was released almost 40 years ago
We'll have to wait and see if "Lethal Weapon 5" actually gets made. In any case, it would certainly be intriguing to see what has become of the cop duo Riggs and Murtaugh after all this time. The "Lethal Weapon" series began back in 1987. The screenplay for that film was written by Shane Black, who went on to make a name for himself in the following years with action films like "Last Action Hero" and eventually became a director as well, helming, among other projects, the superhero blockbuster "Iron Man 3" starring Robert Downey Jr.
The first "Lethal Weapon" film grossed $120 million at the global box office and led to a sequel just two years later. The sequel surpassed its predecessor's earnings, grossing $227 million. In 1992, the third "Lethal Weapon" film – the most successful installment of the action series to date – followed, raking in a total of $321 million. Finally, in 1998, the latest film in the action franchise to date was released, featuring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover alongside newcomer Jet Li in a central role. However, with 285 million, "Lethal Weapon 4" was not quite as successful as its predecessor. Should "Lethal Weapon 5" ever hit theaters, it will be interesting to see how receptive today's audiences will be to the aging action heroes.
