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Mel Gibson to Direct ‘Lethal Weapon 5’
The move comes after the project was put in limbo when director Richard Donner, who'd helmed all the 'Weapon' movies since their inception in 1987, died in July.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Mel Gibson is stepping behind the camera once again, this time to direct the latest — and likely final — installment of the Warner Bros. action franchise Lethal Weapon.
The project was put in limbo when director Richard Donner, who’d helmed all the Weapon movies since their inception in 1987, died in July. Donner, at 91, was working on mounting the fifth installment, which has been in development on and off for years, with screenwriters coming and going. Richard Wenk, who wrote the Denzel Washington-starring Equalizer thrillers, wrote the latest draft.
This changing of the guard had been in the works for months and was blessed, if not instigated, by Lauren Shuler Donner, the wife of Richard Donner.
According to London’s The Sun, which covered the event, Gibson said Donner “was developing the screenplay and he got pretty far along with it. And he said to me one day, ‘Listen, Kid, if I kick the bucket, you will do it.’ And I said, ‘Shut up.’
“He did indeed pass away. But he did ask me to do it and, at the time, I didn’t say anything. He said it to his wife and to the studio and the producer. So, I will be directing the fifth one.”
The Twitter reactions to this are fucking amazing.
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