Shane Black Talks Canned Lethal Weapon 5

Shane Black is out promoting Nice Guys this week.  He’s been discussing a variety of his projects, including The Predator.  But Lethal Weapon 5 also got a mention;;

“I wrote a 62-page treatment with my friend Chuck for “Lethal Weapon 5” that would’ve been, I think, a very good movie. It was interesting. It was essentially an older Riggs and Murtagh in New York City during the worst blizzard in east coast history, fighting a team of expert Blackwater guys from Afghanistan that’s smuggling antiquities. And we had a young character that actually counter-pointed them. But I didn’t wanna do what people do when they’re trying to transition which is, they sorta put the two older guys in the movie, but really it’s about their son! And he’s gonna take over and we’re gonna do a spinoff. Fuck that, if they’re gonna be in the movie, they’re gonna be in the movie — I don’t care how old they are.”

Now I’m going to put my ‘journalist’ hat on here (such as it is!) and point out that this sounds quite similar to what I’ve heard was the final outline for the recently cancelled Beverly Hills Cop 4.  I wonder if the script was ‘re-tooled’ for that movie?  Back when they were getting ready to pull the trigger on that movie, I had the ear of a person or two and it’s kind of a coincidence now that I read this.