he's credited with writing two of my favorite movies--Last Boy Scout and Long Kiss Goodnight: two movies with black and white protagonists and a kid with a doll used to solve a plot dilemma. These movies have really clever dialogue ("Play some rap music.")
But what happened? Did this guy price himself out of the market? Or is he just written out? It's a shame. And I didn't even mention Lethal Weapon--should he be credited with coining the whole, "I'm getting too old for this ****" trend? Really good stuff.....

I think The Last Action Hero and The Long Kiss Goodnight may have something to do with it.

I guess this answers my question:

Daily Variety, May 2, 2003 v279 i19 p4(1)
King of the spec scripts rises once again: Shane Black is going from giant paychecks to starting over.

Shane Black is back. In his first deal since landing a record setting $4 million in 1994 for "The Long Kiss Goodnight' Black will make his directing debut at Warner Bros. on his noir drama script "You'll Never Die in This Town Again' re-teaming with "Lethal Weapon" producer Joel Silver. Black's also teamed with Anthony Bagarozzi to write "The Nice Guys," a buddy action spec that is now being shopped.

Great! I hope he'll be as big as a house.

I was wondering the same thing just the other day, as a matter of fact. Good to know he has a new film coming out.

He was also Hawkins in Predator.

lol

Trailer for Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang:

http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf...632420&intl=us

He's no friend to aspiring screenwriters.

Damn I forgot about that!

Why do you say that? Bad experience or something you heard?

His lack of gay cowboys and faggy 'Clerks wit' is enough.

What is that supposed to mean?

The one guy said "he's no friend to aspiring screenwriters" - which is, you know, insulting Shane Black's mainstream talent. So I'm poking fun at 'artistic' aspiring screenwriters (the kind that would have beef with someone like Black). "Gay Cowboys" is a known cliche.

UNFORTUNATELY, a joke's explination is it's demise. RIP, Gay Cowboys Joke. 08-15-05 05:50 PM - 08-16-05, 04:35 PM.

All in good taste. So have fun. It'll all be over soon.

I still don't get the gay cowboys reference....some please exhume that joke and kill it again.

I watched the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang trailer.

Looks like fun, violent escapism. But I'm worried. Remember Johnathan Hensleigh's, a fellow spec writer's, directorial debut, THE PUNISHER?

I have a good bit of respect for Shane Black. He was kind of a childhood idol of mine. Back when I thought that Lethal Weapon was the BEST MOVIE EVER. Before, you know, I grew up. And he really moved along the evolution of action pictures.. Unfortunately, nowadays, people half ass this stuff, and it's straight to video material.

Hmmm. I don't know. Was there actually a gay cowboy movie?

It's synonomous with artsy, pretentious filmmaking-faggotry. It's the Polar Opposite of Black's movies. I can't really say any more than that.

Always thought it was common knowledge. They even used it in a South Park episode!

Yeah, that's the part that's got me confused.

It's a joke that indie films are all about gay cowboys. Black writes big-budget hollywood stuff - the total opposite.

Ooooooooooooooh. Thanks for clearing that up, Fincher Fan. I'd never heard of that joke before.

A while back, when Lethal Weapon II came out, I had read that Black had originally written the screenplay so that Riggs died at the end of the movie. Of course, the studio refused, citing they weren't going to kill off the franchise's main star. So they asked Black to do a rewrite. Black refused. So the studio brought in Warren Murphy to rewrite the ending, for which he got equal billing as writer. This really pissed off Black, so he said he was done with the Lethal Weapon series.

*pulls out hair*

Dark_Sithlord, that's really interesting! Gosh, I can't really imagine if the series stopped there. It would have been, like, some poetic outcome of sorts - borderline Shakespearean!

The series DID die at #2 when Black apparently left. The others were soo flat. Especially #4, which I think is just disgraceful to the name.

If anyone cares, Hensleigh originally wrote Die Hard 3 as Lethal Weapon 3 or 4. Pretty neat.

Whoops! Guess I didn't read the whole thread before I replied. At least you were gracious about it.