‘Tales From The Gangster Squad’ Writer To Pen ‘Lethal Weapon’ Remake For Warner Bros.
There’s a bunch of potential new remake news from Warner Bros. today, most of which is either silly or plain idiotic. This is one of the silly ones: the studio has moved from the idea of makingLethal Weapon 5(whichShane Blackhasalready outlined) to rebooting the series entirely.Tales From the Gangster SquadwriterWill Beallhas been hired to write the film based on his pitch for a “hard R-rated edgy street cop movie.”
Mel Gibsonreportedly passed on the fifth film, and all love for Shane Black aside, he was probably correct in doing so. SoLethal Weapon 5is dead, and I think even the most die-hard fans of the series can probably live with that.
So why is this idea silly? Two reasons. One is that the characters of Murtaugh and Riggs are inexorably linked withDanny Gloverand Mel Gibson. The idea of recasting them is, at the risk of abusing this word, silly.
The second reason is that recasting the roles and revamping the movie just results in a distant copy ofLethal Weapon, and we already havedozensof those. Thanks to Shane Black’s energetic script,Richard Donner’s direction and some very smart casting,Lethal Weaponbecame one of the benchmarks for action films, and along withMidnight Runand48 Hoursis one of the defining points on the ‘buddy comedy’ template.
I’m all for a fun, hard-R street cop movie. I’d be happy to see one that channels the spirit ofLethal Weapon— the exaggerated characters, the quippy humor, the well-executed action. But if a script is strong enough to become that, allow it the dignity of being its own thing. Will Beall has been a cop, and I’d love to see how his personally-informed take on the genre would shape up. I can guarantee it’ll be a lot more interesting to audiences if it isn’t presented asLethal Weapon 2012. [Deadline]
