Biography for
Shane Black More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

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Mini Biography

Considered one of the pioneer screenwriters of the action genre, Black made his mark with his Lethal Weapon (1987) screenplay. He also collaborated on the story of the sequel, Lethal Weapon 2 (1989). Each successive script he turned in had a higher price attached it, from The Last Boy Scout (1991) to The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), and in between a re-write on the McTiernan/Schwarzenegger Last Action Hero (1993) script.

Trade Mark

Uses a kidnapping as a plot device (Lethal Weapon (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)).

His scripts often combine action, thriller, noir and (black) comedy elements.

Five of his screenplays begin with the letter "L".

Four of his screenplays are all set at Christmas time: Lethal Weapon (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) and _Kiss Kiss, Bang, Bang (2005)_.

Trivia

The $1.75 million he received for his screenplay for The Last Boy Scout (1991) was the highest to date in 1990. He then topped it when he sold the script to _The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) _ for over $2 million a few years later. Both were box-office disappointments that later found cult audiences on home video.

Brother of Terry Black

After being the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, he disappeared as a writer in the late 90s. He recently admitted he withdrew due to pressure and a growing contempt for his own commercial, action-packed material. He is now writing and directing a more character-driven film, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang (2005).

Shared an apartment with future successful screenwriters like Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad (1987), Night of the Creeps (1986), RoboCop 3 (1993)) and Ed Solomon (Men in Black (1997), Charlie's Angels (2000), Levity (2003)). They called their place the "Pad O Guys" and considered themselves a fraternity for the ultimate movie buffs by staging and dissecting John Woo fight scenes in the front yard at three in the morning.

Was 22 when he sold the Lethal Weapon (1987) screenplay.

After a young Joe Carnahan sent him some writing samples, Black wrote a very inspiring letter back, complimenting his writing and encouraging him to move forward with it. Carnahan later went on to write and direct Narc (2002).

Black's two favorite screenwriters are Walter Hill and William Goldman. The sparse side of Black's writing style is inspired by Hill, the commentary bits on the world he's created inspired by Goldman, and his mysterious tone is borrowed from Raymond Chandler.

Was an avid reader of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct, The Hardy Boys, and Doc Savage novels as a child.

Personal Quotes

I'd like to be the sort of raconteur who rattles off quips and bon mots in the moment, but I'm not going to hit you with the dazzler. Most people just say nothing all of the time.

Dialogue can be fun but most people don't study it.

What I missed was the ability to tell stories that felt more like novels -- that had more edge to them, and more risk. There are a lot of obscure movies in the '60s that are thrillers that don't have happy endings. Odd movies like "Vanishing Point," or even "Point Blank" or "Night Moves," that had this sort of bittersweetness about them -- this melancholy where the ending was, you know, "Wow, that's great, I guess." And you didn't know whether the hero had been scarred for life. I think there was just a weight, a gravity, to movies that were made back then -- where you could take a left turn and the studio wouldn't go, "Whoa whoa whoa whoa! This doesn't fit our demographic!" And today -- not with Warner's, because I had a great experience with them, but in general -- I think there's a pressure to sort of sanitize things. Especially today, with the prevalence of the Moral Majority, it's almost like you can't get away with giving someone a harsh look without some citizen's group coming down on you.

I struggled with that for quite a while -- trying to see like a child again, and realizing why I'd started in the movies. To get that excitement back, and lose some of the more unsavory lessons I'd been forced to swallow.

I'm not in the market any more to crash helicopters or blow up the Washington Monument. I'm certainly content to stick at -- if not the $15-million level -- then certainly below the level of blockbuster.

The feeling of finishing the script, the first draft, was the high. Everything that followed -- though of interest, and sometimes slightly exhilarating -- could never match the idea of having just taken your story and racked your brain, finally having it on paper in a version you're willing to tolerate and ready to try to sell. I remember Joe Eszterhas calling me and saying, "Woo hoo! I just sold another one!" You know, there were fun times, but I didn't get into that whole money thing with Joe or the competition. It just seemed a little phony to me. Because ultimately, I like making money, but it's not exclusively what I'm trying to do. It won't make my life fulfilled. Directing comes closer than anything I've found yet to providing me with a good reason to get up in the morning that goes beyond just getting some money. Because all the money does is buy the bed. Getting out of it is the problem.

To this day I have a profound mistrust of the word processor. I have to type it or write it first, screen it and only then enter it for posterity onto the word processor.

Books were my hiding place. The library was more comforting many times than going home after school. I would just go to the library instead. It's amazing to me that to this day, how many screenwriters or aspiring screenwriters you talk to and you say, "What do you like to read?" and they say, "Well I don't really read that much." I say, "You don't read, but you want to be a writer!?" They say, "I like movies, I just want to write movies." They don't read books. I think that's virtually an impossibility. Mostly it was being trapped in a library for any number of years finding tremendous comfort in books.

I liked all the old monster movies. I liked the Hitchcock films, anything scary. I liked to be scared. It was a double edged sword. I get scared, then I couldn't sleep and then I'd feel terrible that I let myself watch that movie. My favorite film is one that to this day I can't watch alone & that's The Exorcist. I can't sit in a room and watch it unless I know my roommates coming home or my mom is going to be there or something. I can't go to bed alone after watching The Exorcist. It's still that scary to me. It's almost like the movie is waiting for a time when I'll sit down and watch it because I can't resist. It will say, Oh no, you just fucked up because you forgot that you are going to be alone tonight. No one is coming home and then I will have to pace around and stay up all night. I love that movie. It's such a perfect piece of filmmaking.

Unforgiven is seminal in so many ways. Whenever I write something, I'm always saying, "Oh, that's from Unforgiven." Or The Exorcist. The other one that I find myself referencing -- hopefully not copying, but certainly referencing -- is All That Jazz, which isn't even an action movie but it has such a power to it, such a melancholy. It's such a wild combination, a musical comedy about death.

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