The Untold Truth Of Lethal Weapon

Warner Bros. struggled to compete at the box office in the late '90s, and in search of a surefire hit, they turned to Lethal Weapon 4. The fourth installment in the franchise had been in development hell since Lethal Weapon 3 hit theaters, but Warners green-lit the film in January of 1998 with a July release targeted, giving the entire cast and crew just six months to get it finished. That's a tight, but doable, turnaround — but in 1998, it was unheard of.

In addition to a major amount of location work, there were the requisite action sequences to figure out, as well as an elaborate car chase that needed to be shot. Editor Frank J. Urioste bore a particularly heavy burden, reportedly being handed a raw cut with less than a month to deliver the final version.

Arriving over a decade and many millions of dollars after the original, Lethal Weapon 4 found the franchise in a very different place — and increasingly reliant on a supporting cast that expanded to add Chris Rock alongside the returning Pesci. Audiences showed up, but the critics weren't overly kind. "New blood, provided by US chat show sensation Chris Rock as Murtaugh's new detective son-in-law and Jet Li, the now-obligatory Chinese action star, as a resilient Triad hitman, is welcome," reads Empire's review. "But not sufficient to dispel the sinking feeling that we are gathered to watch the last in a once unmissable series."