Mel Gibson hopes that ‘Lethal Weapon 5’ begins filming in early 2023.
The 66-year-old star will reprise his role as LA police officer Martin Riggs as the buddy cop franchise returns and revealed that he has worked on the script with Richard Wenk ahead of the movie.
Mel – who will direct the project after the death of original helmer Richard Donner last year – told Screen Rant: “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 honour 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 flavour, and we were pretty happy with what we came up with.”
Mel revealed that the changes behind-the-scenes at Warner Bros. have led to delays on the new ‘Lethal Weapon’ project, which will also see Danny Glover return as cop Roger Murtaugh.
The ‘Braveheart’ star said: “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.”