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
If you're doing something on an interesting scale that involves an entire universe of characters, one way to unite them is to have them all undergo a common experience, and there is something at Christmas that unites everybody. It already sets a stage within the stage.
I always have humour in my action movies. I think characters that make jokes under fire are more real. It somehow helps put you in their shoes.
An action movie should, like any other, follow the narrative traditions of literature. That means there should be subtlety, a slow build and a gradual bringing together of all the separate threads of the plot. To see all of it coming together slowly is very rewarding for the audience.
You have to keep surprising your audience.
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.
Once I started selling scripts for a great deal of money - action scripts, no less, which people tend to pooh-pooh anyway - then I started to get some backlash. Which I didn't mind.