A Lethal Dose

Despite the chatter in recent months about Shane Black's new script and potential casting talk, for a fifth Lethal Weapon"movie may be dead according to an interview with series director Richard Donner in The Los Angeles Times,

Donner says that "the project is pretty much dead in the water unless someone had the sense to come to me."

It seems that Donner, "Lethal Weapon 4" writer Channing Gibson and several others had, at one time, been developing "an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie". However "we weren't given the opportunity and I think maybe I could have convinced Mel [Gibson] to do it.... [the studio] chose to go with Joel Silver " he says, effectively locking him out of a franchise that he was a key part in creating.

Donner isn't happy with how Silver got his mitts on the project

"He tried to put it together but made sure he didn't do it until my contract was up. You know, it's typical of the man. A guy who wasn't even around at the beginning when we started on the first one. He came in late".

Now one of the key leads has passed on it -

"Mel turned it down. I would like to think that Mel turned it down because I wasn't involved. Knowing Mel, I would like to think that. Would that be the kind of thing he does? It sure would be."

Jeez! First Donner gets treated like crap over the release of 16 Blocks and now this...I respect Black very much but if Gibson and Donner didn't sign off on number 5 I will pass.