"Lethal Weapon 5" - Dead in the Water?
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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1 opinion for "Lethal Weapon 5" - Dead in the Water?
Ocean
Oct 14, 2008 at 12:01 pm
No Mel no Lethal Weapon. He is the lethal weapon!
Donner is right. He designed the movie thats his baby and his franchise, and no one elses!
They already took Superman from him so now the carnage must stop.
We want LW 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10 and 26, and i want to be in it!
Mad Max was a supreme breakthrough in movie making, so was LW.
nobody had done that before them nobody ever did since.
They are the Icon of modern age movie and movie making.
Thats an ABC you cant get pass.
Whatever Mel does, he just turn it into a succes and an incredible movie.
He got the magic touch and he can do anything. Like making 4 totaly different and extremely hard movies in a row, in just one year and do that several times..
Air America - Bird on a wire - Hamlet. .. who can even think of being able to do that?
He wants to make LW 5 and cant wait to get started, so Warner Bros, get Donner on the road and stop talking BS instead of buz!
He is going to make it, they just have to stop getting him nut all the time.
If he dont want Joel Silver then dont use Joel and give him Richard. They known each others since the first wall streets crahs in the 30′ees, or close to that, and they work best together (see Conspiracy Theories too) and between a guy that created Superman the eternal Icon and another that made Braveheart and Apocalypto, i really dont see where it could go wrong.. except in WB wrong choices and wrong agendas..
Two succes warranty giants of the cinema, and they want to turn it down..Oh mine.. some people got their wage for doing nothing but messing perfect things up..
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