Terrible ‘Lethal Weapon 5′ script revealed
'Lethal Weapon' director Richard Donner has revealed that a terrible-sounding fifth film in the series was considered. Luckily for film fans, it got binned almost immediately.
While speaking to Empire, Donner revealed the planned film would have followed Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Murtaugh (Danny Glover) on a motorhome holiday.
Donner gave a brief outline of the scrapped script, saying: "The two crazies decide to cool their lives, but it's impossible for them to stay out of situations. It starts with Riggs and Murtaugh out in the country in a motorhome.
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"They're on a trip and they stop to get gas, but Roger forgets to put the brake on. So the motorhome rolls through a village, annihilating everything, and they get in serious trouble. It had a lot of heart, a lot of family."
Gibson and Glover were apparently all set to reprise their roles as the maverick cop double act alongside Rene Russo and Darlene Love.
So director Donner thought this story was a great idea, but we disagree.
There was a habit in the late 1980s and early 1990s for increasingly bloated action franchises becoming utterly ridiculous. 'Rambo', 'Rocky' and 'Die Hard' all immediately spring to mind.
'Rocky's fifth instalment was universally reviled, with Stallone's retired and suddenly brain-damaged boxer forced to return to the industry and get his revenge on a Don King lookalike… only in America.
'Rambo 3' ditched the psychological complexity of the original and saw the peace-loving killing machine take on most of the Russian army with the help of a bow and arrow and those lovable Taliban militia in Afghanistan.
These make us thankful that the fairly ropey 'Lethal Weapon 4' was the last in series.
At least we hope it was.