‘I’m Pretty Happy With It’

It’s been a long time coming, but Lethal Weapon 5 is still in the works according to star Mel Gibson, who will also be taking over directing duties for the late Richard Donner following his passing in 2021. Beginning in 1987, Lethal Weapon saw Gibson team up with Danny Glover in the buddy-cop movie featuring a pair of mismatched LAPD detectives working to solve the murder of a friend’s daughter. The film would go on to earn $120 million at the box office, and spawn an entire franchise that saw three sequels, and a TV show in 2016. A legacy sequel, Lethal Finale, was first mentioned to be in development by Gibson in 2021, but there’s been little news on the project since then.

Appearing on the Inspire Me Podcast, Mel Gibson spoke about Lethal Weapon 5, which he says he’s still going to be directing. He mentioned his relationship with Richard Donner, and how the late director tasked Gibson with carrying on the franchise, something he says is an “honor” for him to do. Check out his comments below.

“I’m going to direct the fifth film in the Lethal Weapon series. You know, Richard Donner, who did the other four, sadly passed away. He was a good friend, and he kind of tasked me with carrying the flag home on that one.
It’ll be an honor for me to do that
.”

Gibson, now 68-years-old, also mentioned that before his death in 2021, Richard Donner had gotten a fair bit done on the screenplay for Lethal Weapon 5 with co-writer Richard Wenk, and since then Gibson and company have continued to “poke at it.” It was reported in 2023 that Jez Butterworth had been brought on board for revisions.

“He [Richard Donner]
had gotten a fair way into the screenplay
, so we’ve used what was there, and we kept poking at it, working at it a little.
I’m pretty happy with it
, it’s good, I had a lot of fun doing it.”

Gibson would conclude the update by saying that audiences can expect the same brand of humor that has been injected throughout the long history of the Lethal Weapon franchise, but that the new film will also deal with some “hard issues.”

When Will Lethal Weapon 5 Be Released?

With the latest update from Mel Gibson, it doesn’t appear as if Lethal Weapon 5 will be going into production anytime soon, so a release date seems far off right now. While he was previously hopeful that the project would get off the ground in 2023, that obviously didn’t happen due to a number of factors, including the merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery, which seemed to have put a wrench into Gibson’s original plans.

As for whether Lethal Weapon 5 will get a theatrical release? That, too, remains up in the air. It was originally thought that the film would be developed for HBO Max as a way to continue to build feature content for the streaming platform. Since then, HBO Max has morphed into simply Max, and while it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility for what were once thought of as theatrical movies to instead be released to streaming à la Salem’s Lot, there’s no confirmation yet on if that will happen with Lethal Weapon 5.

Related

Every Lethal Weapon Movie, Ranked

The Lethal Weapon movies series is a successful action franchise that has produced four sequels and a television series. Here are the movies, ranked.

Mel Gibson will star next in the crime-thriller, Boneyard, which is set to release on July 5, 2025, and his next directorial effort can be seen by way of the thriller, Flight Risk starring Mark Wahlberg, which is set to hit theaters on October 18, 2024.