Rama’s SCREEN

O, man… this info really makes me feel down, man. It’s bad enough I’m out here in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Ohio, now I gotta hear about LETHAL WEAPON 5 Might Not be Happening after all. I’m confused though… Previous info had it that the creator/writer of the two iconic cop buddy characters, scribe Shane Black has written a spec script for the fifth installment.. and then the word went that super producer Joel Silver was just waiting on Mel Gibson’s approval to get the green light. And then recently actor Columbus Short said he’s in talks to play Murtaugh’s son in the movie.

But apparently they’re leaving out the one important ingredient, that if you fail to bring him along, you’ll never get Mel Gibson to do the gig again either.
Director Richard Donner who helmed all four previous Lethal Weapon movies and many more collaborations with Mel Gibson (Maverick, Conspiracy Theory) implied to LA TIMES that maybe Donner’s friend Mel Gibson is probably just upset cause Donner’s not involved in this new project…

“Mel turned it down,” Donner said. “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.”

“It’s too bad, actually, because Channing Gibson, who wrote the fourth one, and Mike Riva, a designer on three of them, and myself and Derek [Hoffman, an associate at The Donner Company] had an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie. But we weren’t given the opportunity and I think maybe I could have convinced Mel to do it. But Warners chose to go with Joel Silver.”

“Yes, the project is pretty much dead in the water unless someone had the sense to come to me.”

Can the project LETHAL WEAPON 5 go on without the blessings of Mel Gibson and Richard Donner?
Is Mel Gibson being stubborn and childish for not wanting to do this fifth sequel just because his friend Donner is not directing it?
Would anybody even want to see LETHAL WEAPON 5 without Mel Gibson as the star at all?
How bout a recast, casting someone else to play Riggs but still have Danny Glover as Murtaugh.. bad idea?
So right now everything is on halt, just like that other Joel Silver’s little project called Justice League of America. If only there’s a solution to this problem.. because something like this, if you wait too long without any result, it would end up in the project being locked away in some ’storage room’ never to be discussed ever again.