Mel Gibson Can’t Imagine Doing Another ‘Lethal Weapon’

[Brian Damage]

As for “Lethal Weapon,” well Hollywood is notoriously—some might say pathetically—hooked on sequels, but Gibson at least seems determined to break his addiction. So if Danny Glover’s Murtaugh dives into a fifth adventure of murder, drugs and campy one liners, he’ll be doing it without the protection of Mel Gibson’s Riggs. “I couldn’t imagine going back there to try to revive that one,” Gibson exclusively told MTV News. “I think we got everything we could out of it.”

To the actor/director, the sheer idea of adding on another installment to the four LAPD buddy comedies seemed as inevitable as it was absurd. “Of course these things always come around,” he said. “Five though? Five?!? Please.”

Even without Gibson’s announcement, there was already plenty of intrigue going on behind the “Lethal Weapon 5” scenes. The producer Joel Silver cut out Richard Donner, who directed the first four films, from the mix and brought back in the screenwriter of the original film, Shane Black, to pen the script and helm the picture. Black was once Hollywood’s most in-demand scribe (“Last Action Hero,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight”) but went missing-in-action for almost a decade before surfacing in 2005 with the box office bust “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” And after Donner told the LA Times that Gibson wasn’t interested in doing another “Weapon” without him, Silver came out and said Gibson in fact might eventually join in.

But now that Gibson has delivered a vehement “No, thanks” to the first “Weapon” in almost a decade, it’s hard to imagine Glover signing on. No Riggs and no Murtaugh has got to mean no picture at all. MTV News is calling it now: “Lethal Weapon 5” is dead. Which would be cause for celebration if “LW 4” had ended up being as dreadful as other late installments of action franchises (“Rambo III,” Beverly Hills Cop III”). But the 1998 action flick made clear that as a comedic duo Gibson and Glover could still deliver and that given enough inspired pyrotechnics the “LW” formula wouldn’t wear thin.

These days, though, Gibson is more focused on creating his own projects. “I would rather write something and try to tell a story somewhere,” he said. “Not that [Shane’s] not telling a story, it’s just that things have a certain life.”

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/02/12...lethal-weapon/