Nearly three decades after Riggs and Murtaugh last shared the screen, Mel Gibson still hasn’t given up on making Lethal Weapon 5. The long-discussed sequel has spent years trapped in development, but Gibson has now revealed considerably more about what the movie would actually look like—and why he believes it could be the strongest installment of the entire franchise.

Speaking with Collider’s Steven Weintraub at Fan Expo Boston, Gibson revealed that he and screenwriter Richard Wenk completed the screenplay following the death of legendary director Richard Donner, and the actor-filmmaker remains committed to directing the project himself if it can finally escape development hell.

Gibson first reflected on why the original Lethal Weapon worked, crediting Donner and writer Shane Black with making Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh more emotionally vulnerable than the action heroes audiences were accustomed to seeing during the 1980s. He then dropped a much bigger update: Donner had already been developing a fifth movie before his death, and Gibson believes the completed screenplay tops everything that came before it.

“Donner realized it. I think he did all of those films, and sadly he’s passed away. But he sort of knew what he had, and Shane Black wrote a good script. It was timely, you know. It was ’80s. We were used to these tough guys on film who kind of had it all together, but they were tough and two-dimensional in a lot of ways. So this one was better because the main protagonists in the story both had kind of vulnerabilities, and one was crazy, and the other was scared, and it went a little deeper than the usual action flick.”

“There were good things about each one, but as you say, they tend to get diluted out there a lot. And, you know, Donner, when he was 90 years old, was working on the fifth, and of course he passed away in the middle. So I got together with the writer, and we completed it thinking, ‘What would Donner do?’ That’s what we were thinking in the room, and I think that the fifth script is better than all of the others. But it’s tied up in some kind of industrial film hell that you can’t extract it from to make it.”

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz
Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like?
Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky

Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.

🏜️Paul Atreides

🖖Capt. Kirk

✊Princess Leia

🔦Ellen Ripley

🔥Max Rockatansky

FIND YOUR HERO →

01

How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher?
The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.

AI absorb everything — every variable, every pattern — and move only when I know the path forward.
BI read the room, make the call, and own the consequences. Hesitation costs more than mistakes.
CI rally people. A cause needs a voice, and I refuse to let fear be louder than conviction.
DI assess the threat, establish what needs doing, and get it done without waiting for permission.
EI don’t lead. I act. Others can follow or not — I’m already moving.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

What is your greatest strength in a crisis?
The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.

APrescience — the ability to see further ahead than anyone else and plan accordingly.
BImprovisation — I’m at my best when the plan falls apart and I have to invent a new one.
CConviction — I know what I’m fighting for, and that certainty doesn’t waver under fire.
DComposure — I stay functional when everyone around me is falling apart. Panic is a luxury.
EEndurance — I outlast things. I take the hit and keep moving long after others have stopped.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for?
Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.

AThe survival and dignity of my people — even if I have to become something frightening to ensure it.
BThe safety of my crew — every single one of them. No one gets left behind.
CFreedom — for my people, for every world still crushed under the weight of an empire.
DThe truth — what actually happened, what’s actually out there, whether anyone believes me or not.
EThe one person — or the one memory — that still makes any of this worth surviving for.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

How do you relate to the people around you?
Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.

AWith intensity and distance — I care deeply, but the weight I carry makes closeness complicated.
BWith warmth and irreverence — I take the mission seriously, not myself.
CWith directness and trust — I say what I mean, and I expect the people I work with to rise to it.
DWith professional care but clear limits — I’ll protect you, but I won’t pretend we’re family.
EWith wariness that slowly becomes loyalty — I don’t trust easily, but when I do, it holds.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do?
How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.

APrepare in silence. If they won’t listen, I’ll be ready when they finally have to.
BKeep pushing until someone listens — and if no one does, handle it myself.
CBuild the case, find the allies, and make the threat impossible to ignore.
DDocument everything. The truth matters even if no one believes it yet.
EStop trying to convince anyone. Survive it. That’s the only argument that counts.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

What has your heroism cost you personally?
Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.

AMy innocence — I’ve seen what I’m capable of, and I can’t unsee it.
BPeople I loved — the command chair has a view, but it’s a lonely one.
CA normal life — I gave up everything ordinary the moment I chose the cause.
DMy sense of safety — I know exactly what’s out there now, and I can’t pretend otherwise.
EAlmost everything — and I’m still not sure what I’m carrying it all for. But I keep going.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in?
Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?

AI understand them deeply — and I know exactly which ones must be broken, and why.
BI respect the spirit of them and bend the letter when the situation demands it.
CThe system is the problem. I’m not here to work within it — I’m here to dismantle it.
DI follow protocol until protocol stops being useful. Then I make the call myself.
EThe rules collapsed a long time ago. What’s left is instinct, and mine are reliable.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

When everything is on the line, what keeps you going?
The answer is the most honest thing about you.

ADestiny — or something that feels so much like it that the difference no longer matters.
BThe people on my ship — their faces, their trust, the fact that they’re counting on me.
CThe belief that what we’re fighting for is worth every sacrifice, including this one.
DSheer refusal to let it win — whatever it is. I don’t stop. That’s just who I am.
EI’m not sure anymore. But the road is still there, and I’m still on it.

REVEAL MY HERO →

Your Hero Has Been Identified
Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…

Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.

Arrakis · Dune

Paul Atreides

You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.

You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.

USS Enterprise · Star Trek

Captain Kirk

You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.

You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.

The Rebellion · Star Wars

Princess Leia

You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.

You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.

The Nostromo · Alien

Ellen Ripley

You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.

You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.

The Wasteland · Mad Max

Max Rockatansky

You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.

You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

What Would ‘Lethal Weapon 5’ Be About?

Gibson also offered rare details about where Riggs and Murtaugh would be decades after Lethal Weapon 4. Rather than trying to compete with modern blockbusters through gigantic visual effects sequences, the sequel would deliberately return to a smaller, character-driven style.

“It only harks back to the others in the minimal way, but it’s a story all on its own. The characters are quite different. They’re older. 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. But it still has the energy and, I think, drive of a big action film. Like, let’s say for instance, Apocalypto. It’s a foot chase, right? But it’s kind of filmed like a car chase. So it still has all the elements of what was in the other films, but not nearly so complicated. But it deals more about the people in it.”

Asked directly whether he would direct the film himself, Gibson responded without hesitation: “Absolutely.” And the reason behind that answer is particularly personal, because according to Gibson, Donner explicitly asked him to take over the franchise if the filmmaker was unable to finish the movie himself. “Absolutely, that was the plan,” he said.

“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. And, you know, when he passed away, I didn’t say anything. But apparently he had told other people that too, so they all came to me and said, ‘You direct it.’ I said, ‘Yeah, okay.’

Gibson then explained that studio politics played a part in why the script never got into the shooting stages, but he expressed hope that, with Warner Bros., Paramount and whoever else now involved in sorting out Hollywood’s chessboard, the movie may see the light of day at last.

“Richard Wenk and I finished the script, and we were going to go into production, but it just never got the wheels under it. I think Warner’s got into some quicksand at that time… so it got buried somewhere, and now I think this David Ellison guy over at Paramount has absorbed or will absorb Warners, or it looks like he will. And maybe, maybe they’ll take the chains off that one, and you might see that in another year or so.”

Gibson offered one final note of optimism near the end of the Fan Expo Boston panel. Asked whether he expected to direct another project soon, he once again singled out Lethal Weapon 5 — with Danny Glover also attending the convention. “Yeah, I don’t know what. I got about four or five guys, they’re all on the bottom drawer. Sure, I’ll drag something up, and hopefully we can get this Lethal thing up with Danny here. He’s here somewhere.”

There is still no guarantee Lethal Weapon 5 will escape development hell, but Gibson clearly hasn’t abandoned it. Until then, all four Lethal Weapon movies are currently available to stream on Tubi.

lethal-weapon-movie-poster.jpg

Release Date

March 6, 1987

Runtime

110 minutes

Director

Richard Donner

instar49825179.jpg

Cast Placeholder Image

Danny Glover

Roger Murtaugh