Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang

Posted on November 2, 2005

The BBC has an interesting piece about Shane Black, who was one of the highest-paid screenwriters of the 1990s. He wrote Lethal Weapon which turned Mel Gibson into an action star. He sold The Last Boy Scout screenplay for $1.75 million, which set a new industry record. Black is making is directorial debut with his new film, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, which stars Robert Downey, Jr. and Val Kilmer. He was used to getting all his phone calls returned, but when he said that he wanted to direct the film as well as write it, suddenly no one wanted to talk to him.

But being the toast of Tinseltown was not all it was cracked up to be, as the burly 43-year-old told the BBC News website during a recent visit to London Film Festival.
"People would act like Joe Eszterhas and I were duking it out [battling] for this king-of-the-hill cash prize," he said. "I was getting attention for all the wrong reasons, and it left a very bad taste in my mouth. It didn't feel like fun anymore. And when it stops being fun, it's time to take a step back." And that is what Black did by taking a self-imposed, eight-year hiatus from the movie industry. "I went out of my way to get out of the spotlight and find a place where I was a little more invisible."
Hollywood, though, can be a fickle beast, as he discovered when he tried to find backing for his new film, the comedy thriller Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. To his horror, he realised his name did not carry the same cachet that it used to. "It was very humbling," he explained. "I was used to getting scripts read the same day I turned them in. "Now weeks would go by and people still hadn't got round to reading it."
It did not help that Black was determined to direct the film himself, or that the script - a film noir pastiche starring Robert Downey Jr as a reluctant gumshoe - featured a gay character (played by Val Kilmer) in a leading role. "Everyone was very reluctant," he told the BBC News website. "I'll go further: everyone hated it. "I was getting doors slammed in my face all across town."

There was a happy ending, though. Producer Joel Silver came through for his old friend and got the film made. Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a noir/comedy/thriller which has good early buzz.