There are some immutable laws of cinema that you just don’t break. Can you imagine if Luke Skywalker had died at the end of The Empire Strikes Back? Or what if Indiana Jones never escaped from the Temple of Doom? And if Neo had not made it through The Matrix Reloaded? Not only would the enormous international fan bases of these franchises have been up in arms, but the studios that had visions of making billions of dollars on subsequent sequels would have been completely hamstrung without the central protagonist and hero. So when screenwriter Shane Black produced a sequel script for the smash 1987 buddy-cop action film Lethal Weapon that had Martin Riggs dying at the end, it was a non-starter and a dealbreaker for Warner Bros. He committed the cardinal sin that flew in the face of everything that fans, producers, and big studios hold sacred.
Shane Black Wanted to Kill Off Mel Gibson’s Character in ‘Lethal Weapon 2’
Shane Black wanting to kill off Mel Gibson‘s Martin Riggs in his Lethal Weapon sequel script is Hollywood blasphemy. Black is a prolific and accomplished screenwriter/director whose credits include notable movies like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3, and The Nice Guys (for which there have been talks of a sequel), but it’s his debut screenwriting effort, Lethal Weapon, that really put him on the map. The sequel he penned to his iconic debut, originally called “Play Dirty” offered an altogether grittier tone and mood compared to the finished film, but killing off Riggs was a step too far both in the franchise narrative and in Fox Studios’ pocketbook, so they decided to go with a more traditional punch-up by writer Jeffrey Boam instead. As a result, the audacious script for “Play Dirty” has never been released and is now considered the holy grail for enthusiasts of ’80s cinema.
David Greenblatt, Black’s agent for more than 20 years, was quoted in a story for the LA Times. He recalls reading the script and knowing that his client had committed the ultimate Hollywood sin and killed off the main character, “I got a call from Warner Bros… ‘You can’t do this!'” It makes sense, right? What would the next two films have even been about without the larger-than-life presence of Riggs driving the movie? We love Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh and his “I’m too old for this shit!” line once per movie, and his wonderful nuclear family. However, without Riggs, the audience would have been left wondering, “Why don’t you just retire then?”
Without Gibson as Riggs, the ‘Lethal Weapon’ Franchise Would Have Died, Too
Without Gibson as Riggs, the remaining cast would become stale. With all due respect to Joe Pesci‘s and Chris Rock‘s stellar comic relief and Rene Russo‘s brilliance as Riggs’s newfound love interest in Lethal Weapon 3 and Lethal Weapon 4, the franchise is all about Riggs and the back-and-forth between him and Murtaugh. The most memorable scenes from the first two movies are exchanges between Riggs and Murtaugh. Without him, you have no buddy cop movie, sequel, or franchise.
Sometimes screenwriters can get overzealous and want to make a WTF twist ending that will leave viewers picking their jaws up from the theater floor, and instead, open up a Pandora’s Box of unforeseen problems. Black should have known better than to play with one of cinema’s most beloved characters, and just delivered a nice and tidy sequel where Riggs and Murtaugh save the day one more time. It’s admirable that Black continues to want to push the envelope creatively, as that is how we get great cinema, but killing Riggs was just too much.
Shane Black Has Proven He’s Not Afraid To Take Risks
When Lethal Weapon debuted, it marked a shift in how high-octane action thrillers were written, and Shane Black wasn’t afraid to buck the typical narrative. With Riggs and Murtaugh taking center stage in the film, it was the first time that the action genre concentrated on the depth of the main characters instead of just relying on big set pieces and smash-bang effects. He did the same with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in The Nice Guys, 40 years later.
In a 2018 piece for The Independent, Black lamented how he views Hollywood as lacking any risk-takers, and bottling up creative types like himself, saying, “Nowadays, given the cost and the necessity of meeting a certain quota in terms of recouping your investment, the playground factor for directors has diminished, that’s for certain.” Indeed, Black has always been looking to buck the system, and some of his best films have been a result of this attitude.
Lethal Weapon is currently available to stream on Prime Video.
Lethal Weapon 2
- Release Date
- July 7, 1989
- Runtime
- 114 minutes
- Writers
- Jeffrey Boam
