Mel Gibson is stepping behind the camera once again, this time to direct the latest — and likely final — installment of the Warner Bros. action franchise “Lethal Weapon.” The project was put in limbo when director Richard Donner, who’d helmed all the “Weapon” movies since their inception in 1987, died in July. Donner, at 91, was working on mounting the fifth installment, which has been in development on and off for years, with screenwriters coming and going. Richard Wenk, who wrote the Denzel Washington-starring “Equalizer” thrillers, wrote the latest draft. Dan Lin of Rideback is producing with Shuler Donner and Gibson now joining him. Rideback’s Jonathan Eirich and The Donners’ Company’s Derek Hoffman will exec produce. According to London’s The Sun, which covered the event, Gibson said Donner “was developing the screenplay and he got pretty far along with it.” “He did indeed pass away. But he did ask me to do it and, at the time, I didn’t say anything. He said it to his wife and to the studio and the producer. So, I will be directing the fifth one.” “Lethal Weapon” was one of the first studio movies to establish Gibson as a Hollywood star in North America after he had toplined several crossover hits from his native Australia, the “Mad Max” movies and drama “The Year of Living Dangerously” among them. It also launched the career of screenwriter Shane Black, whose spec script fused dark and comedic elements in a buddy cop format to tell the tale of two detectives — one a by-the-book family man, the other a temperamental former soldier who’s become suicidal after losing his wife — who work to bring down a massive drug trafficking ring in Los Angeles. The moves were 1980s action staples and a high water mark many others have tried to reach since in terms of action, chemistry and repartee. Warners even tried to mount reboots that starred younger actors and it was even adapted into a TV series. (SD-Agencies) | 