If there’s one franchise we weren’t expecting to hear anything from anytime soon, it was Lethal Weapon. The massive franchise spawned four films that starred Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as buddy cops, one dealing with a life-altering trauma, and other who was most certainly getting too old for this S#&@. The franchise even spawned a TV series a few years ago that was off to a decent start until Clayne Crawford, the actor playing Martin Riggs was fired from the show and they had to kill off his character, replacing him with Sean William’s Scott.
Now, it turns out that Richard Donner, the director of all four original Lethal Weapon films was working with Gibson on a fifth installment of the film. While Donner may no longer be with us, Mel is determined to get the film made and he wants to be the man behind the camera.
Here’s what Gibson told Variety
“He was developing the screenplay and he got pretty far along with it. And he said to me one day, ‘Listen kid, if I kick the bucket, you will do it.’ And I said: ‘Shut up. He did indeed pass away, but he did ask me to do it, and, at the time, I didn’t say anything. He said it to his wife and to the studio and the producer. So, I will be directing the fifth one.”
The franchise is big enough that most studios should jump at it, and Gibson has been out of movie jail for long enough that having his name attached shouldn’t really hurt the project, especially if he dies and the movie can be used as a way to reboot the franchise for a younger generation. The one big unanswered question is whether the now 75-year-old Glover will want to come back and reprise the role of Roger Murtaugh or if he is actually getting too old for this S#!&.