Lethal Weapon Trivia
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This Lethal Weapon trivia quiz has 59 free questions with answers and runs through the whole franchise, from the 1987 original that Shane Black wrote as a fresh UCLA graduate to Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998 and the Fox television reboot. The early questions are the ones any fan will get: who directs, which holiday the first film is set during, what Riggs gives Murtaugh for Christmas, whose immunity gets revoked. From there it moves into casting stories (the star who found the script too violent, the Terminator actor Donner wanted), the rejected Play Dirty draft that killed Riggs off, the real City Hall blown up for the third film's opening, and the NHL game the crew filmed around. There are questions on the music too, including the guitarist behind Riggs's theme and the two singers who wrote singles with Eric Clapton for the third film, plus box office, awards and the fifth film that never got made. Every answer has been checked against the films' Wikipedia pages, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the first Lethal Weapon, what does the autopsy on balcony-jumper Amanda Hunsaker reveal?
Her drugs were poisoned
Her drugs were poisoned. They had been laced with drain cleaner, so she would have died even without the fall, which turns an apparent suicide into the murder case Riggs and Murtaugh are thrown together to solve.
Q 02Where does Riggs's final fistfight with Mr. Joshua take place in the first Lethal Weapon?
Outside Murtaugh's house
Outside Murtaugh's house. The partners had guessed Joshua would go there for revenge and were waiting; Riggs could simply have arrested him but challenged him to a fistfight instead, with fellow officers looking on.
Q 03Which star's 1987 sequel outgrossed Lethal Weapon?
Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy. Lethal Weapon, No. 1 for its first three weekends, was the year's biggest new release until his Beverly Hills Cop II opened on 20 May and took more than twice as much in North America.
Q 04In the Lethal Weapon films, what is the first name of Mel Gibson's character, Riggs?
Martin
Martin. His superiors can't decide whether Martin Riggs's death wish since losing his wife is real or an act to get himself pensioned off, so they pair him with a steady family man.
Q 05In the first Lethal Weapon, the villains kidnap which member of Murtaugh's family?
His daughter Rianne
His daughter Rianne. Her kidnappers want to know what the banker Hunsaker told him, so Murtaugh walks out to meet them with a grenade in his hand while Riggs, whom they believe dead, covers him from a distance.
Q 06During which holiday season is the first Lethal Weapon set?
Christmas
Christmas became a trademark of the film's writer, who set several later scripts at the holiday and calls it "a hush in which we have a chance to assess and retrospect our lives".
Q 07How does Riggs bring a suicidal man down from a rooftop in the first Lethal Weapon?
Cuffs himself to him and jumps
Cuffs himself to him and jumps: Riggs cares so little whether he lives that he leaps first, and a shaken Murtaugh realises his new partner really is suicidal.
Q 08Who plays the villainous Mr. Joshua in the first Lethal Weapon?
Gary Busey
Gary Busey had never played a bad guy before Mr. Joshua; until then he was best known for his Oscar-nominated lead in The Buddy Holly Story.
Q 09What is the name of the drug-smuggling operation of ex-CIA mercenaries in the first Lethal Weapon?
Shadow Company
Shadow Company began as a CIA-run unit of trained killers in the Vietnam War, where it burned the enemy's heroin; years later its veterans regrouped to smuggle the drug themselves.
Q 10What present does Riggs leave for Murtaugh at the end of the first Lethal Weapon?
A hollow-point bullet
A hollow-point bullet: Riggs had been saving it to shoot himself, and he hands it to Murtaugh's daughter with word that he won't need it anymore.
Q 11Which actor recalls passing on Lethal Weapon after a girlfriend read the script and called it 'way too violent'?
Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis told the story in a 2007 interview about Die Hard, the action hit he made a year after Lethal Weapon came out, joking: "Thank God I didn't do that one!"
Q 12Which Western reunites Lethal Weapon's two stars in a brief unbilled cameo scene?
Maverick
Maverick, made by the series' director in 1994, has Mel Gibson's gambler and a masked bank robber share a look of recognition before the robber mutters that he's too old for this.
Q 13Who composed the score for the Lethal Weapon films?
Michael Kamen
Q 21The villains of Lethal Weapon 2 come from which country?
South Africa
South Africa was still under apartheid, and Murtaugh distracts the villains' office staff by turning up to announce that he wants to emigrate there.
Q 22What legal shield do the villains of Lethal Weapon 2 hide behind?
Diplomatic immunity
Diplomatic immunity is what the ringleader claims once more at gunpoint in the last shoot-out; Murtaugh shoots him anyway and says it has "just been revoked".
Q 23Who plays Roger Murtaugh, the veteran detective forever 'too old for this', in the Lethal Weapon films?
Danny Glover
Danny Glover was only 40 when he first played Murtaugh, a detective who turns 50 as the story begins and already feels past it.
Michael Kamen was hired after the film's editor cut scenes to his music for the BBC thriller Edge of Darkness; he later admitted he hated the script, yet he scored all four films.
Q 14Which guitarist performs Riggs's theme in the Lethal Weapon scores?
Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton came as a package with the composer, his partner on a BBC thriller score, who said he disliked the script and only took the job because Clapton liked Mel Gibson.
Q 15The first Lethal Weapon earned its only Academy Award nomination in which category?
Best Sound
Best Sound went to The Last Emperor, which won all nine awards it was up for; the second film's sound editing was nominated two years later, yet no Lethal Weapon film ever won an Oscar.
Q 16Which martial art did Rorion Gracie teach Mel Gibson for Riggs's fight scenes in the first Lethal Weapon?
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Gracie recalls being hired after a crew member saw him fight a kickboxer, and in 1993 he co-founded the Ultimate Fighting Championship to show off the style.
Q 17Who plays Murtaugh's wife Trish in the Lethal Weapon films?
Darlene Love
Darlene Love was a hidden voice of 1960s pop: she sang lead on the chart-topping "He's a Rebel", which was released under the Crystals' name, long before playing Trish in all four films.
Q 18How does Riggs win a squad-room bet by escaping a straitjacket in Lethal Weapon 2?
Dislocates his shoulder
Dislocates his shoulder: an old injury lets Riggs pop it out whenever he likes, though he admits it hurts far more when he slams it back in.
Q 19Which studio bought the first Lethal Weapon script for $250,000 and released all four films?
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. bought the script within a week of its young writer finishing it, and the four films it spawned went on to gross more than $950 million worldwide.
Q 20In Lethal Weapon 2, where is Murtaugh sitting when he learns a bomb is wired beneath him?
On his toilet
On his toilet: Murtaugh stays put all night until Riggs finds him, then the pair dive into the cast-iron bathtub under a bomb blanket as it goes off.
Q 24What happened to Riggs at the end of the rejected first draft of Lethal Weapon 2?
Was killed
He was killed in a climactic battle with his arch-nemesis; the producers rejected the draft, titled Play Dirty, as too grim, and its writer left the project.
Q 25Where does the climax of Lethal Weapon 2 take place?
Aboard a docked freighter
Aboard a docked freighter, the Alba Varden: Murtaugh realises the name on a stolen note is a ship when he spots it in the background of his own home video.
Q 26Which weapon does Murtaugh use to kill two assassins in his home in Lethal Weapon 2?
A nail gun
A nail gun was within reach because a builder was working on the house; Murtaugh fires it at both intruders, then mutters that he "nailed them both".
Q 27Who plays Rika van den Haas, Riggs's love interest in Lethal Weapon 2?
Patsy Kensit
Patsy Kensit, then the singer of the pop band Eighth Wonder, plays the secretary whose drowning by her own bosses sends Riggs after them for revenge.
Q 28In Lethal Weapon 2, what does the villain Vorstedt confess after capturing Riggs?
He caused his wife's death
He caused his wife's death: the car crash that left Riggs a suicidal widower was a hit meant for Riggs himself, ordered years earlier when he got too close to the gang.
Q 29Which ex-Beatle contributed the song 'Cheer Down' to the Lethal Weapon 2 soundtrack?
George Harrison
George Harrison wrote "Cheer Down" with Tom Petty, and it plays over the closing credits; the title is said to come from his wife Olivia, who used the phrase to calm him when he got carried away.
Q 30Lethal Weapon 2 finished third in 1989's North American box office behind Batman and what?
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade took $197 million in North America to Lethal Weapon 2's $147 million, though the cop sequel did knock Batman off the top spot on its opening weekend.