DIRECTED BY: Richard Donner

WRITTEN BY: Shane Black (characters), Jeffrey Boam (story)

MEL GIBSON AS: Sergeant Martin Riggs

GENRE: Action, Crime, Thriller

TAGLINES:

- The magic is back again!

PLOT SUMMARY:

Superstars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover return with director Richard Donner for Lethal Weapon 3, the third in the phenomenally successful action series. In this film, Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is only eight days away from retirement and his partner Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) once again manages to get them both into hot water with the both LAPD and the bad guys, who this time are Jack Travis (Stuart Wilson) and a gang of hoodlums selling armor-piercing bullets. Joe Pesci returns as the fast-talking schmuck Leo Getz. A new addition to the cast is Rene Russo as Lorna Cole, a sergeant from internal affairs sent to investigate Riggs and Murtaugh, but who ultimately ends up falling in love with the caffeinated Riggs. –All Movie Guide

RELEASE DATES:

1992 May 15 (United States)
1992 June 20 (South Korea)
1992 June 26 (Denmark)
1992 June 26 (Sweden)
1992 July 17 (Netherlands)
1992 August 12 (France)
1992 August 14 (Finland)
1992 August 14 (United Kingdom)
1992 August 27 (Germany)
1992 August 28 (Spain)
1992 September 3 (Australia)
1992 October 3 (Japan)
1992 October 29 (Argentina)
1992 September 10 (Estonia)

BOX OFFICE GROSS:

United States: $144,731,527
International: $177,000,000

FILMING LOCATIONS:

Los Angeles and Lancaster, California; Orlando, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, Florida, USA.

TRIVIA:

- Director Richard Donner is an animal-rights and pro-choice activist, and placed many posters and stickers for these causes in the film. Of note are the T-shirt worn by one of Murtaugh’s daughters (the actress’s idea), an 18-wheeler with an anti-fur slogan on the side, and a sticker on a locker in the police station.

- Murtaugh and Riggs drive past a cinema advertising Radio Flyer (1992), also directed by Richard Donner.

- Mel Gibson’s character Riggs eats some dog cookies in order to stop smoking. In Mad Max 2 (1981), Mel’s character eats a can of dog food in order to survive.

- During the armored-car chase, Delores, the excitable driver of the armored car chasing after Riggs (Mel Gibson), refers to herself as a “Road Warrior.” The Road Warrior character (a.k.a. ‘Mad’ Max from Mad Max (1979) and Mad Max 2 (1981) as well as follow-ups) is the role that made Gibson famous to North American audiences.

- Marble slabs that were once part of the old city hall destroyed for the film are now used as tabletops at a local outdoor cafe in Orlando, Florida.

- Keep watching after the end credits.

- The housing construction site was not a set built for the film but an actual real estate project near Lancaster, California. The developers went broke before the homes could be completed. The production company could film there only after agreeing to tear the site down completely after the shoot.

- Murtagh’s boat is called “code 7″ which is the L.A.P.D code for a lunch break

- This is the only Lethal Weapon film that does not feature the villains threatening Murtaugh’s family or coming into their home.

- During the scene where Riggs and Lorna are comparing scars, many of Riggs’ were given to him during the events of Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), specifically the gun shots in his lung and the knife wound in the back of his leg.

- When the building blows up at the start of the film, the roaring sound is the same roar used in King Kong (1976) for the giant ape.

- The lines between Riggs and Lorna about “semantics” and “some antics” were originally filmed inside Lorna’s car.

- For promotion of the film, theater lobbies featured a 3-D cut out of the movie poster of Riggs and Murtaugh posing with their guns and Leo Getz peeking from the background. On the display, the was a motor which helped Leo’s head bob up and down from behind them.

- Carrie Fisher was an uncredited script doctor on the film.

- Bill Frederick, the mayor of Orlando, Florida, was the policeman who said “Bravo!” to Murtaugh and Riggs after the explosion of the building in the opening scene, which was the old Orlando City Hall.

- After receiving the unusual writing credits (Story by Jeffrey Boam, Screenplay by Jeffrey Boam and Jeffrey Boam & Robert Mark Kamen), the advertising department assumed it was a misprint and produced posters with the credits “Story by Jeffrey Boam, Screenplay by Jeffrey Boam and Robert Mark Kamen”. After a few of the posters had been sent out, the WGA contacted the department, telling them that the initial credits were the correct ones, and ordering the posters to be recalled and destroyed. A few still remain in circulation, however.

- Florida’s Orlando City Council was only too happy to let the production blow up their old ugly city hall, with producer Joel Silver paying $165,000 for the privilege.

- Following the film’s massive box office success, Warner Brothers gave Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, producer Joel Silver, director Richard Donner and writer Jeffrey Boam a brand-new black Range Rover as a thank-you present.

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