Lethal Weapon 5 Gets Long-Awaited Update 27 Years Later From Mel Gibson

Lethal Weapon 5 may finally be taking several steps forward.

It has been 27 years since Mel Gibson and Danny Glover last appeared together as the iconic buddy-cop duo in Lethal Weapon 4, but the franchise has never completely disappeared from the conversation. The possibility of a fifth movie has lingered for years, with the project repeatedly approaching development before seemingly disappearing again. Now, Gibson has provided perhaps his clearest update yet, and it sounds like the long-awaited sequel is still very much alive.

Speaking with Collider’s Steven Weintraub at Fan Expo Boston, Gibson revealed that he and screenwriter Richard Wenk have completed the Lethal Weapon 5 script. More importantly, Gibson remains committed to directing the movie himself, after the late Richard Donner died at 91 in 2021.

Lethal Weapon 5 Will Be the First Mel Gibson-Directed Movie in the Franchise

The fifth movie has an unusually personal connection to Donner, who directed all four previous Lethal Weapon movies before his passing. According to Gibson, Donner asked him to take over if he was ever unable to finish the project himself, telling Collider:

“Donner, God rest his soul, he said to me in this deep voice, he said, ‘Hey kid, if I drop off the perch, you’ll take this over, won’t you?’ I said, ‘Shut up! You’re not going anywhere.’ And of course he did.”

Gibson ultimately honored that request, working with Wenk to complete the screenplay with Donner’s vision in mind. He believes the result could be the strongest script the franchise has produced.

“Richard Wenk and I finished the script, and we were going to go into production, but it just never got the wheels under it,” Gibson explained. “I think that the fifth script is better than all of the others.”

That doesn’t mean Lethal Weapon 5 is suddenly ready to begin filming. IMDb still lists the movie as being in development, and there is no confirmed release date. Gibson says the completed project has instead become caught up in what he describes as “industrial film hell” between studio politics with Warner Bros. and Paramount.

The original Lethal Weapon was released in 1987 and helped establish the blueprint for the modern buddy-cop action movie, pairing Gibson’s unpredictable Riggs with Glover’s increasingly exhausted Murtaugh. Their opposing personalities were just as important as the gunfights and explosions, giving the franchise an emotional core that helped it age better than many of the buddy-cop movies that followed it.

Lethal Weapon 5 Will Be A More Character-Driven Sequel

Rather than throwing an older Riggs and Murtaugh into increasingly elaborate action sequences, Gibson says the fifth movie will acknowledge their age and change their circumstances.

“One’s retired. The other one’s on a desk job. He’s putting on too much weight, and it’s low-tech. It doesn’t get into the big explosions and all this sort of stuff,” Gibson said.

Gibson also compared the approach to his 2006 movie Apocalypto, explaining that the action can remain intense without requiring enormous set pieces. In his view, even something as simple as a foot chase can be filmed with the momentum and energy of a car chase.

That sounds less like an attempt to manufacture another nostalgia-driven action sequel and more like a story designed around where these characters would realistically be after nearly three decades. In terms of when fans can expect Lethal Weapon 5 to come fully to life, Gibson suggested that the movie could potentially move forward within the next year if the complicated studio situation surrounding it is finally resolved.