“I’m getting too old for this,” Roger Murtaugh grumbled his way through four movies, and it became one of the most quoted lines in buddy-cop history. Nearly three decades after the last entry, the joke has curdled into a genuine obstacle. “Lethal Weapon 5” has been perpetually “happening” for years, dangled in front of fans like a carrot on a very long stick, and the latest update from Mel Gibson is a maddening mix of great news and frustrating reality. The script, he says, is the best one yet. It’s also still going nowhere.
Gibson, who of course played the unhinged, suicidal-then-redeemed detective Martin Riggs across the original quartet, has been vocal about the project, and his enthusiasm is real. He’s revealed that he sat down with a writer and hammered out multiple drafts of a screenplay, and that the result came out — in his estimation — better than any of the previous four films. That’s a bold claim for a franchise whose first entry is a bona fide action classic. Coming from the man who lived inside Riggs, it’s the kind of statement that gets a fandom’s hopes soaring. If the guy who knows the character best thinks it’s the strongest story yet, that means something. Warning: beyond this point there are spoilers for the status of “Lethal Weapon 5” and the obstacles keeping it from being made.
“I’m getting too old for this,” Roger Murtaugh grumbled his way through four movies, and it became one of the most quoted lines in buddy-cop history.”
He’s also confirmed the essential pieces fans want locked in. Gibson intends to both star in and direct the film, stepping behind the camera for the franchise the way he has on his acclaimed directorial efforts. And crucially, Danny Glover would return as Murtaugh, reuniting the buddy-cop duo whose crackling chemistry was always the beating heart of the series. Riggs and Murtaugh — the loose cannon and the family man, the death wish and the level head — are one of the all-time great screen partnerships. The prospect of getting them back together, older and grayer but still bickering, is genuinely tantalizing.
Here’s where the record scratches. Despite the finished script and Gibson’s confidence, the film remains firmly stuck in development hell, and he’s been candid about why. The studios, he’s said, are having a lot of problems with the project — the vague but familiar language of a film that can’t quite get its financing and its greenlight aligned. On top of that, Gibson himself is an extraordinarily busy man, with his long-gestating biblical epic, a follow-up to “The Passion of the Christ,” commanding his attention and pulling him toward Italy for an extended shoot. A director this committed elsewhere is a director who can’t start your movie tomorrow.
There’s a poignant shadow over the whole thing, too, and it’s impossible to ignore. Richard Donner directed all four original “Lethal Weapon” films and was deeply involved in trying to get a fifth made before his death in 2021. Donner was the architect of the franchise’s tone — that specific blend of hard-edged action, real emotional stakes, and genuine warmth between its leads. Any “Lethal Weapon 5” now carries the weight of being made without him, ideally as a tribute to the man who defined the series. That responsibility raises the emotional stakes even as it complicates the production.
The irony that Murtaugh’s catchphrase has become literally true is almost too perfect. Glover is now in his late seventies, Gibson in his late sixties. A fifth film would have to lean into that reality rather than pretend it away — two aging cops, genuinely too old for this, pulled back into the chaos one last time. Handled with wit and heart, that’s not a liability; it’s the most honest and appealing version of the story. There’s real poignancy in watching beloved characters confront their own mortality, the passage of time turning a running gag into something moving. The material is right there.
The question, as it has been for years, is whether it will ever actually happen. Development hell is where good intentions go to die, and “Lethal Weapon 5” has all the hallmarks of a project that could stay in limbo indefinitely — a passionate creative team, a finished script everyone likes, and a wall of logistical and financial obstacles that never quite comes down. Fans have learned to temper their excitement, having heard “it’s coming” too many times to fully believe it. Optimism and exhaustion war with each other every time a new update drops.
So we’re left where we’ve been for a while now: closer than ever and yet no closer at all. “Lethal Weapon 5” has its best script, its stars willing, its director eager, and the memory of Richard Donner to honor — everything it needs except a studio ready to pull the trigger and a window in Mel Gibson’s crowded calendar. Maybe it gets made. Maybe Riggs and Murtaugh ride again for one last, creaky, gloriously reckless adventure. Or maybe it stays the great “what if” of the buddy-cop genre. Either way, we’re getting too old for this wait.
What Do You Think? Should “Lethal Weapon 5” lean into the fact that Riggs and Murtaugh are genuinely too old for this now, or does the action franchise need younger blood? Does Mel Gibson directing and starring, without Richard Donner, sound like the right way to honor the series or a risky proposition? And after years of false starts, do you actually believe this movie will ever get made?
See you on the next binge!
