A while back, Mel Gibson made a lot of Lethal Weapon fans happy when he announced that he would be taking up the mantle and make a fifth film even after prolific franchise director Richard Donner passed. Gibson stated that he would not only return as the iconic Martin Riggs along with Danny Glover’s Roger Murtaugh but that he would also helm the pic as well. Since then it’s been radio silent….

Well, doing press rounds for his latest film called Bandit, Gibson served up a much needed update for the film while speaking with Screen Rant. Unfortunately it looks like the shake up over at Warner Bros is the primary cause for the delay but Gibson still seems optimistic that it will eventually happen.

“It’s [coming along] great, we’ve got a really good screenplay that I developed. Well, Donner developed it, Richard Donner, of course, developed it with Richard Wenk, and they had a really good template. I had the honor of sitting down, after Richard passed away, with the writer and doing a couple more drafts and trying to do it in the spirit of what we thought Donner might [want], because I knew the guy so well. We tried to get that flavor, and we were pretty happy with what we came up with. The only delay is now with all the shake-up at Warners, with Discovery coming in and the new boss, and they chop everyone else up and throw them away and get new people. It always takes time for these companies to regroup, so that’s been a delay, but I’m pretty confident we’ll get this one up on its feet, probably shoot it in the first quarter of the New Year,” Gibson confided to Screen Rant.

I really hope that Gibson still has enough pull to get this running as I’m one of the many who would love to see Riggs and Murtaugh battle out one more case even if they are too old for this shit. Lethal Weapon is bar none, one of the best buddy cop franchises ever and back in the day, these films were the perfect compliment of action, humor and heart. Stay tuned…

Keep it locked and loaded right here for what will hopefully be a positive update on Lethal Weapon 5 in the future as we are your destination for everything action in 2022 and beyond!