It’s been a while since we’ve heard any news on long-awaited buddy cop sequel Lethal Weapon 5, which probably has a lot to do with the major players getting a little too old for this sh*t. After all, we’ve been gripped by a global pandemic for well over a year now, so it’s not as if 91 year-old director Richard Donner, 74 year-old Danny Glover and 65 year-old Mel Gibson would be rushing to get the movie into production, especially when the latter suffered through a lengthy battle with COVID-19 himself.
Unsurprisingly, Donner is touting the fifth installment in the franchise as the last outing for Riggs and Murtaugh, as well as the final directorial effort of a career that stretches back more than 60 years. Glover teased that it could be something extraordinary based on the outline he’d read, while Gibson said the script was being worked on last November, but no scribes have been officially named as of yet and Donner hasn’t received a writing credit since 1957, so it’s hard to imagine he’ll be penning the screenplay.
Despite virtually nothing being known about Lethal Weapon 5 at this stage, insider Daniel Richtman now claims that Tom Cruise is being eyed for the villain. That’s the beginning and the end of the tipster’s say on the matter, though, so it’s an entirely vague and massively speculative statement.
Of course, the bad guys have hardly been integral to the series so far, with the Gibson/Glover dynamic largely powering the property. Looking at the facts, though, Cruise has played precisely one villain in the last 27 years as part of Michael Mann’s Collateral, and besides a winking cameo in the prologue of Austin Powers in Goldmember, he’s never boarded a pre-existing franchise before, either.
At this stage, then, you probably shouldn’t bet on him showing up to harass the geriatric detectives in Lethal Weapon 5, but who knows? Stranger things have happened.