Mel Gibson not interested in Lethal Weapon 5

2012.08.15

Warner Bros may be planning to continue the Lethal Weapon series (as was announced back in 2011), but they'll be doing so without any involvement from Mel Gibson, after the star revealed he would not be interested in doing a fifth movie.

"No," said Gibson, when asked about the possibility by ComingSoon. "I think the way things are going, they'll just remake those somehow. Though it's really tough to replace Danny [Glover]. He was so amazing in those things. It was a good gig for us. They really afforded me the opportunity to slow down and pick things and do things that really interested me." One such project is Gibson's long-gestating Viking movie, Berserker, which the star continued to provide an update on. "I believe it's going forward," he confirmed. "I've talked to actors and stuff, and there are some good names attached who want to do it."

"I've got a great script," he continued. "And the idea's been batting around my head for years. And I couldn't find a way to make it work, because if you look at what Vikings did, they're pretty unsympathetic. And there's no point in doing Viking light. So I had to find a way to find devices and ways to make that work dramatically, intelligently and make it seem realistic."

And as was the case with The Passion Of The Christ and Apocalypto, the dialogue used will be something out of the ordinary. "I'd thought about that at one time," he said of the possibility of doing the film in Old Norse, "but then when you consider that English comes from the middle English language, it's not a big jump. I'll do something that's understandable for a modern audience. But it won't be the English they're used to."

When asked if he thought Hollywood is a forgiving town, Gibson replies, “No it’s not. They have to forget. I don’t think they think they’re vindictive. I don’t think there’s reason to forgive. And forgive what to begin with? What are they asking for? It is kind of ridiculous. So it’s kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what needs to be forgiven and I don’t consider that anything does because I didn’t hurt anyone.”

Gibson’s version of events regarding Eszterhas, as told to ComingSoon.net: “A guy gets paid to write a screenplay and doesn’t turn anything in for 14 months. That’s a serious problem. Not even an outline, so I lost my nutter with him. I developed a Viking script almost a year after he started and I already had a second draft and he hadn’t even given me an outline…I DO want to make [Maccabees] and I will make it. And that’ll be a great film.”

Source: ComingSoon.net