Shane Black
Shane Black
Shane Black is an American screenwriter, director, producer and actor. He wrote the 1987 action movie hit Lethal Weapon, and made his directorial debut with the film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in 2005. His acting credits include appearing in the original Predator film, for which he is currently set to write and direct in the next installment...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth16 December 1961
CityPittsburgh, PA
CountryUnited States of America
He's not Mel Gibson, he's not Val Kilmer, and he's certainly not Damon Wayans. He's actually the cool-headed one.
I felt like we were taking a bit of a chance, ... Val has his own reputation, but as soon as we got going I was like, 'Why didn't anyone think of teaming these guys up together before?'
You can win more arguments then you might think as a writer, even though you legally have no recourse, and your script can get muddied and altered in any way possible. You can use reason, logic, and passion to argue persuasively for a case in your favor.
I hate 'The Professional.' It's one of the worst action/adventure movies ever made.
I could direct it and steer it, but I just wanted to see what comes of that.
Depending on how much you like these guys, you may want to take another trip with them. It's certainly fun to write about these characters.
Don't worry. I saw 'Lord of the Rings'; I'm not gonna have the movie end 20 times.
Robert would come in and read just for the fun of it, and I'd be like, 'Hey, that's exactly what I had in mind,'
You have to keep surprising your audience.
The worst of the action films are the ones where everything is one shout from beginning to finish. And there's no differentiation between beats, like small or big, or quiet or expansive. It's all just one loud shout.
Here's what I didn't know when I was starting out that I now know…I thought when you were starting out it was really hard to write because you hadn't broken in yet, you hadn't really hit your stride yet. What I found out paradoxically is that the next script you write doesn't get easier because you wrote one before…each one gets harder by a factor of 10.
An action film can have too much action; picture an equaliser on a stereo, with all the knobs pegged at 10. It becomes a cacophony and is, ultimately, quite boring.
I'll say, what makes me happy about making movies is, every once in a while through movies we find a kind of honesty. There's an honesty in fiction that's as effective or even more powerful than the honesty of our lives. We can find something that's genuinely true, like a chemistry between people or a statement that speaks to an audience.
I'm ashamed to say this, but I watched every episode of 'Starsky and Hutch' as a kid. I loved that show, but now I think it's stupid - they'd have a car chase for no reason, then Paul Michael Glaser would shoot the car and it would blow up.