Mel Gibson is in talks to direct and star in Lethal Weapon 5. Entertainment Weekly reports that Gibson is currently in negotiations to take over the iconic action movie franchise following the death of Richard Donner. Gibson has said that he’ll be working from a script written by Donner before he passed away.
“[Donner] was developing the screenplay and he got pretty far along with it,” Gibson explained to The Sun. “And he said to me one day, ‘Listen kid, if I kick the bucket you will do it.’ And I said: ‘Shut up.’ But 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.”
There’s been talk of a fifth Lethal Weapon for decades now. Warner Bros tried to resurrect the thriller movie in 2009 with Shane Black directing, but Gibson reportedly wasn’t interested in revisiting the franchise without Donner.
Donner later revealed, in 2017, that he, Gibson and Danny Glover had all agreed to come back for a fifth movie adding it would be the last in the ’80s movie series. “This is the final one. It’s both my privilege and duty to put it to bed,” Donner told The Telegraph. “It’s exciting, actually… Hahaha! It’s the last one, I’ll promise you that.”
Lethal Weapon 5 is being developed for the streaming service HBO Max and will premiere on the service.