Shane Black
Encyclopedia
Shane Black is an American actor
, screenwriter
and film director
. He contributed to some of the biggest blockbuster
action film
s of the late 1980s and early 1990s, including work on Lethal Weapon
and The Last Boy Scout
. He made his debut as director with the film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
.
, Pennsylvania
, the son of Patricia Ann James and Paul Black. His father was a football star in college and later founded his own printing business. Black's family moved to Fullerton
, California
. He attended Sunny Hills High School
, a renowned magnet school
.
He studied theater at UCLA and graduated in 1983 with the intent to become an actor. While looking for a way to make some income as he struggled to find acting roles, his friend Fred Dekker
encouraged Black to try his hand at screenwriting. Remembering what he learned from a dramatic writing class he took in college, he borrowed a typewriter and went to work on his first script. At age 23, Black wrote his second screenplay, Lethal Weapon
, in six weeks. His agent David Greenblatt sold the screenplay in three days. The film would become a successful franchise and help Mel Gibson
become a superstar celebrity.
Predator
; since then he has acted in a further five films and in one television episode for the TV series Dark Justice
.
released in 1987 for $250,000 and was paid $125,000 as a co-writer of Lethal Weapon 2
released in 1989. Since then he made substantially more money as a screenwriter. He received $1.75 million for his screenplay The Last Boy Scout
released in 1991, and $1 million for Last Action Hero
released in 1993. At the height of his career he was the highest paid screenwriter in the Hollywood movie industry, making $4 million for penning The Long Kiss Goodnight
. Black was the writer and director for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
.
Black has admitted that many of the script
s he had written for other directors, although commanding a hefty sum, were rewritten to a point where they scarcely resembled his product. This is such a common experience in Hollywood that the Writers Guild of America, West
conducts an arbitration system whereby the "multiple writers who contributed to a given screenplay contend for screen credit on the resulting film."
Black used the pseudonyms Harry Lime and Holly Martins, the names of two leading characters in the film The Third Man
, for certain projects.
s about the situations taking place in the story. He also sometimes directs comments at studio executives and certain script readers. Examples of these include:
From Lethal Weapon:
From The Last Boyscout:
He has used kidnapping as a plot device in several films: Lethal Weapon
, The Last Boy Scout
, The Long Kiss Goodnight
, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
. Five of his scripts start with the letter L. At least four of his screenplays take place during Christmas
.
Black gave a list of techniques he uses when writing films in an interview with The Guardian
.
October 21, 2006. In 2005, he received the Best Original Screenplay award for Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang from the San Diego Film Critics Association.
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
and film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
. He contributed to some of the biggest blockbuster
Blockbuster Movie
Blockbuster Movie was a movie showcase that aired on New York City television station WOR-TV .It aired on weekday afternoons at 4:00 PM and played a wide variety of films...
action film
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
s of the late 1980s and early 1990s, including work on Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film and the first in a series of films, all directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a mismatched pair of LAPD detectives, and Gary Busey as their primary adversary...
and The Last Boy Scout
The Last Boy Scout
The Last Boy Scout is a 1991 action film starring Bruce Willis as a former Secret Service agent, now working as a private detective, and Damon Wayans as a retired professional football player. The two join forces to solve the murder of Wayans' character’s girlfriend . The movie was produced by...
. He made his debut as director with the film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a 2005 crime/dark comedy film, which engages many conventions of the classic film noir genre in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. It is based, in part, on the novel Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday. The cast includes Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan...
.
Early life
Black was born and grew up in PittsburghPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, the son of Patricia Ann James and Paul Black. His father was a football star in college and later founded his own printing business. Black's family moved to Fullerton
Fullerton, California
Fullerton is a city located in northern Orange County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 135,161.It was founded in 1887 by George and Edward Amerige and named for George H. Fullerton, who secured the land on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He attended Sunny Hills High School
Sunny Hills High School
Sunny Hills High School is a public high school located in Fullerton, California, USA. Established in 1959, it is part of the Fullerton Joint Union High School District....
, a renowned magnet school
Magnet school
In education in the United States, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities as school zones that feed into certain schools.There are magnet schools at the...
.
He studied theater at UCLA and graduated in 1983 with the intent to become an actor. While looking for a way to make some income as he struggled to find acting roles, his friend Fred Dekker
Fred Dekker
Fred Dekker is an American writer and director of the cult classic films Night of the Creeps and The Monster Squad . He contributed the story ideas for both House and Ricochet...
encouraged Black to try his hand at screenwriting. Remembering what he learned from a dramatic writing class he took in college, he borrowed a typewriter and went to work on his first script. At age 23, Black wrote his second screenplay, Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film and the first in a series of films, all directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a mismatched pair of LAPD detectives, and Gary Busey as their primary adversary...
, in six weeks. His agent David Greenblatt sold the screenplay in three days. The film would become a successful franchise and help Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
become a superstar celebrity.
Acting
Black's first acting role came in the filmFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
Predator
Predator (film)
Predator is a 1987 American science fiction action film directed by John McTiernan, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, and Kevin Peter Hall. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox....
; since then he has acted in a further five films and in one television episode for the TV series Dark Justice
Dark Justice
The series began airing in 1991 and ran for three seasons finishing in 1993.Tagline: "Justice may be blind... but it can see in the dark."- Production and filming :...
.
Screenwriting
The majority of Black's career is in screenwriting - he has written 10 scripts. He sold his first screenplay Lethal WeaponLethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film and the first in a series of films, all directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a mismatched pair of LAPD detectives, and Gary Busey as their primary adversary...
released in 1987 for $250,000 and was paid $125,000 as a co-writer of Lethal Weapon 2
Lethal Weapon 2
Lethal Weapon 2 is a 1989 action comedy film directed by Richard Donner, and starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Patsy Kensit, Joe Pesci, Derrick O'Connor and Joss Ackland...
released in 1989. Since then he made substantially more money as a screenwriter. He received $1.75 million for his screenplay The Last Boy Scout
The Last Boy Scout
The Last Boy Scout is a 1991 action film starring Bruce Willis as a former Secret Service agent, now working as a private detective, and Damon Wayans as a retired professional football player. The two join forces to solve the murder of Wayans' character’s girlfriend . The movie was produced by...
released in 1991, and $1 million for Last Action Hero
Last Action Hero
Last Action Hero is a 1993 American action-comedy-fantasy film directed and produced by John McTiernan. It is a satire of the action genre and its clichés, containing several parodies of action films in the form of films within the film....
released in 1993. At the height of his career he was the highest paid screenwriter in the Hollywood movie industry, making $4 million for penning The Long Kiss Goodnight
The Long Kiss Goodnight
The Long Kiss Goodnight is a 1996 action thriller film starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, written by Shane Black and directed by Renny Harlin.-Plot:...
. Black was the writer and director for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a 2005 crime/dark comedy film, which engages many conventions of the classic film noir genre in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. It is based, in part, on the novel Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday. The cast includes Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan...
.
Black has admitted that many of the script
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
s he had written for other directors, although commanding a hefty sum, were rewritten to a point where they scarcely resembled his product. This is such a common experience in Hollywood that the Writers Guild of America, West
Writers Guild of America, west
Writers Guild of America, West is a labor union representing film, television, radio, and new media writers. The Guild was formed in 1954 from five organizations representing writers, which include the Screen Writers Guild...
conducts an arbitration system whereby the "multiple writers who contributed to a given screenplay contend for screen credit on the resulting film."
Black used the pseudonyms Harry Lime and Holly Martins, the names of two leading characters in the film The Third Man
The Third Man
The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir, directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Many critics rank it as a masterpiece, particularly remembered for its atmospheric cinematography, performances, and unique musical score...
, for certain projects.
Style
Black has a recognizable writing style where he often adds comments (referred to as "Shane Blackisms") and jokeJoke
A joke is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices...
s about the situations taking place in the story. He also sometimes directs comments at studio executives and certain script readers. Examples of these include:
From Lethal Weapon:
From The Last Boyscout:
He has used kidnapping as a plot device in several films: Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film and the first in a series of films, all directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a mismatched pair of LAPD detectives, and Gary Busey as their primary adversary...
, The Last Boy Scout
The Last Boy Scout
The Last Boy Scout is a 1991 action film starring Bruce Willis as a former Secret Service agent, now working as a private detective, and Damon Wayans as a retired professional football player. The two join forces to solve the murder of Wayans' character’s girlfriend . The movie was produced by...
, The Long Kiss Goodnight
The Long Kiss Goodnight
The Long Kiss Goodnight is a 1996 action thriller film starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, written by Shane Black and directed by Renny Harlin.-Plot:...
, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a 2005 crime/dark comedy film, which engages many conventions of the classic film noir genre in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. It is based, in part, on the novel Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday. The cast includes Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan...
. Five of his scripts start with the letter L. At least four of his screenplays take place during Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
.
Black gave a list of techniques he uses when writing films in an interview with The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
.
Awards and honors
Black received the Distinguished Screenwriter Award from the Austin Film FestivalAustin Film Festival
The Austin Film Festival was started in 1994 in Austin, Texas and is claimed to be "the first organization of its kind to focus on the writer’s unique creative contribution to the film and television industries"...
October 21, 2006. In 2005, he received the Best Original Screenplay award for Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang from the San Diego Film Critics Association.
Acting
- 1987: PredatorPredator (film)Predator is a 1987 American science fiction action film directed by John McTiernan, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, and Kevin Peter Hall. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox....
as Hawkins - 1988: Dead Heat as Patrolman
- 1991: Dark JusticeDark JusticeThe series began airing in 1991 and ran for three seasons finishing in 1993.Tagline: "Justice may be blind... but it can see in the dark."- Production and filming :...
(TV; 1 episode, "Nowhere to Hide") - 1993: RoboCop 3RoboCop 3RoboCop 3 is a science fiction action film, released in 1993, set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, and filmed in Atlanta, Georgia. Most of the buildings seen in the film were slated for demolition to make way for facilities for the 1996 Olympics. Nancy Allen as...
as Donnelly - 1994: Night Realm
- 1997: As Good as It GetsAs Good as It GetsAs Good as It Gets is a 1997 American romantic comedy film directed by James L. Brooks and produced by Laura Ziskin. It stars Jack Nicholson as a misanthropic, obsessive-compulsive novelist, Helen Hunt as a single mother with an asthmatic son, and Greg Kinnear as a gay artist. The screenplay was...
as Brian, Cafe 24 manager - 1997: An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood BurnAn Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood BurnAn Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn was made in 1997 and released in 1998. It was regarded as one of the worst films of all time, and scooped five awards at the 1998 Golden Raspberry Awards. The film had an estimated budget of $10,000,000 and grossed at least $52,850...
as Himself - 2002: The Boy Scout as Henchman #2
Directing
- 2005: Kiss Kiss Bang BangKiss Kiss Bang BangKiss Kiss Bang Bang is a 2005 crime/dark comedy film, which engages many conventions of the classic film noir genre in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. It is based, in part, on the novel Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday. The cast includes Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan...
- 2013: Iron Man 3
- Forthcoming: Death Note
Producing
- 1991: The Last Boy ScoutThe Last Boy ScoutThe Last Boy Scout is a 1991 action film starring Bruce Willis as a former Secret Service agent, now working as a private detective, and Damon Wayans as a retired professional football player. The two join forces to solve the murder of Wayans' character’s girlfriend . The movie was produced by...
(executive producer) - 1996: The Long Kiss GoodnightThe Long Kiss GoodnightThe Long Kiss Goodnight is a 1996 action thriller film starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, written by Shane Black and directed by Renny Harlin.-Plot:...
(producer) - 2006: A.W.O.L.A.W.O.L. (2006 film)A.W.O.L. is an American motion picture that was released in 2007. It was written by Shane Black , produced by Jessica Wethington and directed by Jack Swanstrom. It stars David Morse, John C...
(executive producer) (as Harry Lime)
Screenwriting
- Lethal WeaponLethal WeaponLethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film and the first in a series of films, all directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a mismatched pair of LAPD detectives, and Gary Busey as their primary adversary...
(1987) - The Monster SquadThe Monster SquadThe Monster Squad is a comedy/horror film written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker and directed by Fred Dekker . It was released by Tri-Star Pictures on August 14, 1987. The film features the classic monsters , led by Count Dracula...
(with Fred DekkerFred DekkerFred Dekker is an American writer and director of the cult classic films Night of the Creeps and The Monster Squad . He contributed the story ideas for both House and Ricochet...
) (1987) - Lethal Weapon 2Lethal Weapon 2Lethal Weapon 2 is a 1989 action comedy film directed by Richard Donner, and starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Patsy Kensit, Joe Pesci, Derrick O'Connor and Joss Ackland...
(1988) (Story Only) - The Last Boy ScoutThe Last Boy ScoutThe Last Boy Scout is a 1991 action film starring Bruce Willis as a former Secret Service agent, now working as a private detective, and Damon Wayans as a retired professional football player. The two join forces to solve the murder of Wayans' character’s girlfriend . The movie was produced by...
(1991) - Last Action HeroLast Action HeroLast Action Hero is a 1993 American action-comedy-fantasy film directed and produced by John McTiernan. It is a satire of the action genre and its clichés, containing several parodies of action films in the form of films within the film....
(1993) - The Long Kiss GoodnightThe Long Kiss GoodnightThe Long Kiss Goodnight is a 1996 action thriller film starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, written by Shane Black and directed by Renny Harlin.-Plot:...
(1996) - Kiss Kiss Bang BangKiss Kiss Bang BangKiss Kiss Bang Bang is a 2005 crime/dark comedy film, which engages many conventions of the classic film noir genre in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. It is based, in part, on the novel Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday. The cast includes Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan...
(2005) - A.W.O.L.A.W.O.L. (2006 film)A.W.O.L. is an American motion picture that was released in 2007. It was written by Shane Black , produced by Jessica Wethington and directed by Jack Swanstrom. It stars David Morse, John C...
(2006) (as Holly Martins)