Shane Black
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| Shane Black | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 16, 1961 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Other name(s) | Harry Lime, Holly Martins |
| Years active | 1987–current |
Shane Black (born December 16, 1961) is an American actor, screenwriter and film director. He is responsible for the some of the biggest blockbuster action films of the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and education
Black was born and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Patricia Ann and Paul Black. His father was a football star in college and later founded his own printing business.[2] Black's family moved to Fullerton, California and attended Sunny Hills High School, a renowned magnet school.[3]
In college he studied theater and graduated with a degree from UCLA in 1983. After graduating from UCLA he spent time with a close circle of film-buff friends. One of his friends, Fred Dekker, encouraged Black to try his hand at screenwriting. At the age of 23 Black wrote his second screenplay Lethal Weapon in six weeks, after getting the idea of a cop becoming suicidal. 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.
[edit] Career
Black's first acting role came in the film Predator; since then he has acted in a further five films and in one television episode for the TV series Dark Justice. Black also directed a film, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (for which he also wrote the screenplay and screen story).
He used kidnapping as a plot device in several films: Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
The majority of Black's career is in screenwriting - he has written 10 scripts. He sold his first screenplay Lethal Weapon 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.[1]
Black received the Distinguished Screenwriter Award from the Austin Film Festival October 21, 2006. In 2005, he received the Best Original Screenplay award for Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang' from the San Diego Film Critics Association.
Black has admitted on numerous occasions that many of the scripts he had written for other directors, although commanding a hefty sum, were rewritten to a point where they scarcely resembled his product.
Black has a recognizable writing style where he often adds comments and jokes about the situations taking place in the story. He also sometimes directs comments at studio executives and certain script readers.
Black used the pseudonyms Harry Lime and Holly Martins for certain projects, names of two leading characters in the film, The Third Man.
Five of his scripts start with the letter L. At least four of his screenplays take place during Christmas.
From an interview in Empire magazine:
| “ | But the two scripts—The Last Boy Scout, which at that time sold for more money than any other script, and The Long Kiss Goodnight which sold for much more money at that time than any other script—were both extensively rewritten. | ” |
| “ | The problem was that with Lethal Weapon 2 they did a lot of comedy. My draft had one scene with Joe Pesci's guy. He had a few lines. In their version, they had essentially the same character but throughout the entire script. It’s all about edge to me. | ” |
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Acting
- 1987: Predator as Hawkins
- 1988: Dead Heat as Patrolman
- 1991: Dark Justice (1 TV episode, "Nowhere to Hide")
- 1993: RoboCop 3 as Donnelly
- 1994: Night Realm
- 1997: As Good as It Gets as Frank, Cafe 24 manager
- 1997: An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn as Himself
- 2002: The Boy Scout as Henchman #2
[edit] Directing
- 2005: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
[edit] Producing
- 1991: The Last Boy Scout (executive producer)
- 1996: The Long Kiss Goodnight (producer)
- 2006: A.W.O.L. (executive producer) (as Harry Lime)
[edit] Screenwriting
- 1987: Lethal Weapon
- 1987: The Monster Squad
- 1989: Lethal Weapon 2 ("Story by" credit)
- 1991: The Last Boy Scout
- 1993: Last Action Hero
- 1996: The Long Kiss Goodnight
- 1998: Lethal Weapon 4 (characters)
- 2005: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
- 2006: A.W.O.L. (as Holly Martins)
[edit] References
- ^ a b Biography for Shane Black. IMDB. Retrieved on 2007-04-13.
- ^ Shane Black Biography (1961-)
- ^ Shane Black, Coming Back With a 'Bang': 'Lethal Weapon' Writer Rearms With Sendup, By Laura Winters, Special to The Washington Post, Sunday, November 6, 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110400411.html, retrieved June 29, 2007
[edit] External links
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