Lethal Weapon 5 Moving Forward With Original Cast and Director

It looks like the Lethal Weapon franchise isn’t over just quite yet. Sitting down at a recent producers roundtable with THR, Dan Lin revealed Warner Brothers is looking to crank out at least one more movie featuring the original cast and crew, including Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, and helmer Richard Donner.

“We’re trying to make the last Lethal Weapon move,” Lin says. “And Dick Donner’s coming back. The original cast is coming back. And it’s just amazing. The story itself is very personal to him. Mel and Danny are ready to go, so it’s about the script.”

Lethal Weapon 5 would be the first theatrical release to the franchise in over 20 years, with Lethal Weapon 4 hitting theaters July 10, 1998. Donner has found himself in the director’s chair for all four installations, so it’s only fitting he returns for one final Lethal Weapon to serve as the property’s swan song. The Superman legend turns 90 this April.

At one point Lethal Weapon creator Shane Black unveiled a pitch he had for a fifth movie, something he says would be set during the worst blizzard New York City has ever seen. “I wrote a 62-page treatment with my friend Chuck for Lethal Weapon 5 that would’ve been, I think, a very good movie,” Black divulged in 2016. “It was interesting. It was essentially an older Riggs and Murtagh in New York City during the worst blizzard in east coast history, fighting a team of expert Blackwater guys from Afghanistan that’s smuggling antiquities. And we had a young character that actually counter-pointed them.”

He added, “But I didn’t wanna do what people do when they’re trying to transition which is, they sorta put the two older guys in the movie, but really it’s about their son! And he’s gonna take over and we’re gonna do a spinoff. F–k that: If they’re gonna be in the movie, they’re gonna be in the movie — I don’t care how old they are.”

A Lethal Weapon series featuring on all-new cast aired on Fox for three seasons but was canceled last May. Lin also oversaw production on that.

Lethal Weapon 5 has yet to set or release date or, for that matter, officially be greenlit by Warner Brothers.