No fifth Lethal Weapon

Posted on October 15, 2008
Filed Under Actors, Directors

This is turning out to be a real remake/sequel week. And I’m not gonna stop now. Why not dig really deep in the ever growing pile of sequels? Today I’m going to give you the latest (bad) news on the long talked about fifth “Lethal Weapon” movie. Personally I think they should have stopped somewhere around the second movie. Well, ok, the fourth was ok (mainly because Jet Li was in it). But a fifth… I don’t know… I think both the audience and the actors have moved on.

But, there is still talks about a yet another sequel and I’m here to give you the latest news. First, I’m going to give you a short recap: Some months ago it was reported that the first film’s scribe Shane Black delivered a fifth script to the studio which producer Joel Silver immediately picked up, while actor Columbus Short said he was in talks to play Murtaugh’s (Danny Glover) son in the film.

And now Dark Horizons reports that at the same time, it seems that Richard Donner, writer Channing Gibson and several others had been developing “an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie” according to the veteran helmer. However “we weren’t given the opportunity and I think maybe I could have convinced Mel Gibson to do it. But Warners chose to go with Joel Silver” he says, effectively being shut out of the franchise he was a key part in creating.

Donner isn’t happy with how Silver secured the project – “Joel Silver tried to ace me out of it. He tried to put it together but made sure he didn’t do it until my contract was up. You know, it’s typical of the man. A guy who wasn’t even around at the beginning when we started on the first one. He came in late“.

Now it seems the project has come to a halt altogether as one of the key leads has passed on it – “Mel turned it down. I would like to think that Mel turned it down because I wasn’t involved. Knowing Mel, I would like to think that. Would that be the kind of thing he does? It sure would be.”

So, despite talks about the new script, the fifth “Lethal Weapon” is pretty much dead. In Richard Donners exact words: “The project is pretty much dead in the water unless someone had the sense to come to me.”

The whole thing sounds like an epsiode of some daytime soap to be honest… I’ll keep you posted if anything new happens.

Comments