Production History (Lethal Weapon) Lethal Weapon (1987)
The spec script that bought the building
Lethal Weapon started as an unsolicited screenplay by Shane Black, a twenty-three-year-old USC graduate sharing a Hollywood apartment with fellow writers Fred Dekker and Ed Solomon. Black wrote the script in 1985; his ICM agent Bobbi Thompson sent it to studios in late autumn. Warner Bros. paid $250,000 against $50,000 — at the time the largest sum ever paid to a first-time screenwriter for a spec script. The transaction is the foundational event of the late-80s spec-script boom — see Shane Black and the Spec-Script Boom.
"I read it on a Saturday and committed on Monday. The thing the script had that nothing else did was the trailer scene. The hollow point. I had not seen a studio script that was willing to put a real suicide attempt on the page. I called Joel and said yes." — Richard Donner, The Hollywood Reporter (2017)
Joel Silver attached as producer; Richard Donner signed on to direct. Two screenplay drafts survive in the wiki's reference folder: an earlier spec draft and the 7/26/86 shooting script with Pink/Blue/Yellow revisions. Donner negotiated changes to the spec during preproduction — most notably softening Riggs's drug-use subplot, reducing the body count of incidental criminals, and clarifying the ending. Jeffrey Boam came in for an uncredited polish.
Casting
Mel Gibson (in Lethal Weapon) was Donner's first choice. Bruce Willis (busy with Moonlighting) and William Petersen had been on a short list. Gibson signed in early 1986 for a reported $1 million — his largest American payday to that point.
Danny Glover (in Lethal Weapon) was cast on the strength of Witness (1985). The role had been written by Black for an unnamed older actor, and the decision to cast a Black actor was Donner's. Glover was forty when he shot the film, playing fifty.
"I needed somebody whose presence could absorb Mel. If Murtaugh is overplayed, Riggs becomes the only person in the movie." — Richard Donner, Empire (2017)
Gary Busey was cast as Joshua after a series of physical audition tests; Donner wanted an actor who could match Gibson's body. Mitchell Ryan came in late as McAllister after John Vernon and Ed Lauter passed. Tom Atkins was cast as Hunsaker on the strength of Halloween III and Creepshow.
The Murtaugh family was cast as a unit. Darlene Love (Trish), Traci Wolfe (Rianne), Ebonie Smith (Carrie), and Damon Hines (Nick) all read together. Steve Kahan, who plays Captain Murphy, was Donner's cousin and would appear in every Lethal Weapon sequel.
The crew
Stephen Goldblatt photographed the film, beginning a partnership with Donner that would span all four Lethal Weapon pictures and Conspiracy Theory (1997). Michael Kamen composed the score, with Eric Clapton playing the Riggs guitar theme and David Sanborn playing the Murtaugh saxophone theme. Stuart Baird edited (he would cut several Donner films through the 1990s). Bobby Bass was the stunt coordinator; Marion Dougherty cast the picture; AD Willie Simmons ran the floor.
The shoot
Principal photography began in August 1986 and ran approximately twelve weeks. The production was Los Angeles-based throughout, with locations including:
| Location | Use in film |
|---|---|
| 1410 N. Hayworth Ave (apartment building exterior) | The cold-open Hunsaker high-rise (Amanda's apparent suicide), beat 1 |
| 9810 Wanda Park Drive, Beverly Hills | The Murtaugh family residence — exteriors |
| Ventura County / El Mirage Dry Lake | Victorville sunrise handoff sequence, beat 29 |
| The Sahara Hotel rooftop, Hollywood | The high-rise jumper sequence, beat 12 |
| LAPD Robbery-Homicide division | Squad-room scenes |
| Marina del Rey beach | Riggs's trailer (interior built on the beach) |
| Hollywood Boulevard nightclub basement (built on a Warners soundstage) | Endo torture sequence, beat 30 |
The lawn-fight sequence at beats 35-36 was photographed at dusk over two evenings on the residential street that doubled for Murtaugh's neighborhood. Goldblatt used available light supplemented by police-cruiser bars and one bounced reflector — see The Lawn Fight.
The trailer scene at beat 4 was shot in a single setup on the Mel Gibson side and intercut with the dog. Gibson cried on the take and was reportedly embarrassed about it; Donner kept the take.b4
Stunt training
Gibson and Busey trained in Brazilian capoeira and Filipino arnis stick-fighting under Cedric Adams and Rorion Gracie for three months before principal photography. The chokehold and the rolling guard in the lawn fight at beat 35 are clean demonstrations of arnis-derived ground-grappling moves.b35a Stunt coordinator Bobby Bass choreographed the lawn-fight sequence over four days and shot it in two.
The butane-lighter scene at beat 10 — Joshua holds his bare arm in a flame at McAllister's request — was shot with a real flame. Donner has said the prop department offered a flesh-colored sleeve and a non-flammable substitute and Busey turned both down.b10
The studio's Christmas concerns
Warner Bros. executives raised concerns during principal photography about the suicide scene at beat 4 — they reportedly asked it be cut. Donner refused. The studio agreed to keep the scene if the close-up of the gun in Riggs's mouth was reduced from a held shot to a quick cut. Donner shot both versions and used the held shot in the final cut.
"If I had cut that scene the rest of the picture would not work. I told them: you bought a script with a man trying to kill himself in the first ten minutes. We are making the film that script is." — Richard Donner, Vulture oral history (2017)
A second studio concern was the R-rating exposure. The MPAA assigned the film an R on the basis of language, violence, and the torture sequence in beat 30. Donner did not contest the rating.
Post-production
Stuart Baird edited the picture in long takes — the chokehold-and-release shot in the lawn fight is held for forty-three seconds in the finished film, against the typical late-80s action editing rhythm of three-to-five-second cuts. Donner has said in multiple interviews that he wanted the audience to see who was hitting whom and why, against the trend toward what he called jacking the cut.
The Michael Kamen score was recorded with a 90-piece orchestra at AIR Studios in London; Eric Clapton's electric-guitar Riggs theme was overdubbed in Los Angeles with Kamen present. David Sanborn's alto-saxophone Murtaugh theme was recorded in New York. The Christmas-music source cuts (Bobby Helms's Jingle Bell Rock, Honey Cone's I Want a Christmas Without You) were licensed by music supervisor Becky Mancuso-Winding.
Release
The film opened wide on March 6, 1987, on 1,295 screens. Warner Bros. promoted it heavily — trailers in front of Platoon (1986) and Outrageous Fortune (1987) had built awareness. The marketing campaign emphasized the Mel Gibson persona; the Danny Glover face was on the poster but not centrally framed.
The opening weekend grossed $6.8 million; the picture had legs and ran in theaters for sixteen weeks, eventually earning $65.2 million domestic and $120.2 million worldwide on a budget of approximately $15 million. By every measure the film was a substantial commercial success — see Critical Reception and Legacy (Lethal Weapon).