You know, I’ve never been all that keen on another “Lethal Weapon” movie. I was on-board through “Lethal Weapon 3,” because that’s when they brought in Rene Russo as Lorna Cole. One of my favorite scenes of all time is when she and Mel Gibson are comparing wounds and then end up rolling on the floor together. To die for. But “Lethal Weapon 4″? Not so much.
So it wouldn’t bother me horribly if another movie wasn’t made, and that’s what it’s sounding like. The Los Angeles Times spoke to 78-year-old Richard Donner, director and producer of all four “Lethal Weapon” movies, about the proposed Lethal Weapon 5.
More after the jump…
He flat out said that Mel Gibson turned it down, and the project is dead in the water. “I would like to think that Mel turned it down because I wasn’t involved,” said Donner. “Knowing Mel, I would like to think that. Would that be the kind of thing he does? It sure would be.”
Donner was actually involved with the project early on, along with Channing Gibson, who wrote the fourth one, Mike Riva, a designer on three of them, and Derek Hoffman, an associate at The Donner Company. The team “had an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie,” said Donner, “but we weren’t given the opportunity, and I think maybe I could have convinced Mel to do it. But Warners chose to go with Joel Silver.”
He adds, “Yes, the project is pretty much dead in the water unless someone had the sense to come to me.” No ego there, is there?!
What do you think? Could the project go forward without Mel Gibson? Or SHOULD the project go forward in any form?
Image: Mel Gibson, Apocalypto, Buena Vista, 2006
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