Anyone excited for the new instalment from the deadly franchise will be excited to hear this latest.

Shane Black (director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang/Iron Man 2/The Nice Guys and writer of the first Lethal Weapon), who also wrote the script with his Monster Squad co-writer Fred Dekker, revealed that filming begun today via a tweet containing an image of the infamous alien savage:

 

Black also revealed that the movie, following on from the recent likes of Deadpool and Logan, will be R-rated. We love the way he announced this:

 

Not only that, but the writer-director also revealed the first image of the ‘partial cast’, which includes its lead characters:

 

The cast assembled includes Boyd Holbrook (Narcos, Logan), Olivia Munn (X-Men: Apocalypse), Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight), Keegan-Michael Key (Keanu, Key & Peele), Thomas Jane (The Punisher), Jacob Tremblay (Room) and Sterling K. Brown (The People vs. O.J. Simpson, This is Us).

Schwarzenegger is said to not be returning for fear he would turn the movie, which is ‘not a sequel’, into ‘a gimmick.’

Black tweeted the picture with the message: ‘Partial cast... beautiful human beings, good people. Also, killers. Cameras roll today. Follow me on Twitter for updates. Wish us luck.’

At the time of writing, he has about 7000 followers, but we’ve a feeling that number is about to shoot up.