I was so damn excited when I heard that the studio was going to push forward with plans for a Lethal Weapon 5 a little while back. As I mentioned in an earlier post, sometimes movies are more about their great characters than they are about great stories… and when you have great characters, you feel like you want to go back and visit them again and again. Well… Riggs and Murtaugh where two of those types of characters to me, and in my opinion you can’t visit them enough. Hell, I’d watch a Lethal Weapon movie even if it was just the two of them barbecuing some burgers for 90 minutes just talking nonsense and I’d still be entertained.
However, today brought grave and unwelcome news to my ears. Seems like the old producer, Richard Donner, is letting people know that Mel Gibson has turned the project down, crushing any future hops of me seeing these old friends on screen again. Such a shame.
Not one to shy away from patting his own back, Donner suggests that had the studio come to him to produce the movie instead of Joel Silver, Mel Gibson may have agreed and the film would have gotten done. An article in the LA Times reports:
“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,” Donner said. “It’s too bad, actually, because Channing Gibson, who wrote the fourth one, and Mike Riva, a designer on three of them, and myself and Derek [Hoffman, an associate at The Donner Company] had an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie. But we weren’t given the opportunity and I think maybe I could have convinced Mel to do it.”
I’m not really clear on why you wouldn’t go with Donner if he was really open to producing it. Oh well… we don’t know everything and maybe the studio had its reasons… it just seems strange on the surface. Right now I’m just looking for who to be mad at because I really wanted a Lethal Weapon 5. Guess I’ll just go kick a puppy.
9 Comments, Comment or Ping
Robert Forest
That is the most KICK-ASS crazy looking picture of Mel G. I have ever seen! Awesome choice! He looks like a madman! Like a cross between himself and Charles Manson.
Oct 14th, 2008
DG Music
Awwww…that’s such a shame.
Oct 14th, 2008
cosmic
ya know what? maybe instead of another Lethal Weapon Mel will spend that time doing something GOOD like direct another awesome movie!
Oct 14th, 2008
Godovhellfire
Thank the gods!
Oct 14th, 2008
TIMMY TIMBOS
“Guess I’ll just go kick a puppy.”
So a cute puppy is gonna have to suffer because you aren’t happy that Mel isn’t gonna be in another one of those Lethal Weapon flicks? Crist spread on a cracker, John, that’s cruel.
I hope Nagy whips your ass for declaring to commit such a sin. :P
Oct 14th, 2008
Ocean
Hell thats thee worse news of the year!
thats worse than wall street crack and worse than the US economy!
How on earth could that happen?
We want Mel on the screen and we want a Lethal Weapon 5!
cant they get that straight at warner Bros.
Ya know what?
Mel should film it with Donner at Icon studio and thats it!
Darn what a bunch of fool they are at Hollywood to be so unable to get mel Gibson into LW 5 when he was so wild with making it himself and couldnt wait with getting started.
They should have ask me to make the deal and it will have work, thats for sure!
Oct 14th, 2008
Tom
When a Shane Black script doesn’t get made, we all lose.
Damn :(
Oct 14th, 2008
George
for once sanity got the better of mel!!
the lethal weapon series was a serious case of diminishing returns culminating in that piece of shit part 4.
So happy this has been put on ice
Oct 14th, 2008
astrocreep
I love the characters but I was disappointed about part 4, maybe its good he turned it down
and by the way John you shouldn’t go kick a puppy, you should go punch babies instead lol
Oct 15th, 2008
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