The Lethal Weapon director that producer Joel Silver originally wanted could have taken the franchise in an entirely different direction. Richard Donner directed 1987’s Lethal Weapon and its three sequels through 1998 to critical and commercial success. The franchise has come to epitomize the buddy cop genre’s blend of action and comedy despite the first movie being more of an action thriller. However, had Joel Silver’s original choice directed Lethal Weapon, the franchise would have likely gone down a different path.
Lethal Weapon centers on two LAPD detectives that form an unlikely partnership—former Green Beret with a death wish Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and veteran officer and family man Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover). Like many Hollywood productions, a number of names were considered to fill roles both in front of and behind the camera, including the director. Producer Joel Silver was no stranger to the buddy cop genre having set the standard with 1982’s 48 Hrs., starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, but for Lethal Weapon, Silver originally had a director in mind that had made a name for himself in a different genre.
Warner Bros. ed On Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott was Joel Silver’s preferred choice to direct Lethal Weapon, but first, Silver had to sell the idea to Warner Bros. Scott burst onto the scene in 1979 with his claustrophobic, sci-fi-horror classic Alien. He followed up that sophomore outing with another sci-fi movie, 1982’s Blade Runner, this time for Warner Bros. Although now considered a classic in the genre, Blade Runner didn’t fare so well at the box office earning only $41.6 million against a $30 million budget.
Warner Bros. soured on Ridley Scott following Blade Runner’s lackluster release and thus didn’t want him directing Lethal Weapon. After briefly considering Leonard Nimoy to helm the project, Joel Silver landed on Superman and The Goonies director Richard Donner, of whom Warner Bros. approved. Perhaps the decision was best for all parties as Donner carried the Lethal Weapon franchise to great heights for over a decade while Scott delivered an Oscar winner in 1991 with the road movie genre mashup Thelma & Louise.
How Ridley Scott Would Have Changed Lethal Weapon
Had Ridley Scott directed Lethal Weapon, the franchise would have most likely taken on a different tone. Shane Black and Jeffrey Boam’s screenplay for the first Lethal Weapon movie, though still containing Black’s signature dark comedy, was less of an action comedy than its more light-hearted sequels. In the 1980s, Ridley Scott was anything but a comedic director. He followed his early sci-fi outings with a fantasy movie, Legend, before taking on the action-packed crime drama Black Rain. While Scott would have fit the bill for the first Lethal Weapon, his tendencies for more serious, thrilling action would have most likely left their mark on the franchise’s sequels.
Although missing out on the chance to direct one of the all-time great buddy cop movies in Lethal Weapon, Ridley Scott has had no problem in carving out a niche for himself in genre movies. Ridley Scott's horror classics and neo-noir thrillers paint a picture of how the Lethal Weapon franchise could have gone had he been at the helm. It’s hard to imagine Lethal Weapon having much more success than it did under Richard Donner, however, a great director in his own right.
