“I may be a little slow. I’m not used to this anymore,” Shane Black preemptively apologized at the beginning of his interview with the Playlist. “I forgot that these things are a drain by the end of the day,” said the writer/director of “Iron Man 3” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and the screenwriter behind action standards such as “Lethal Weapon” and “The Last Boy Scout.” His weariness is a stark contrast to the film we’re discussing, “The Nice Guys,” which crackles with comic and violent energy.
“The Nice Guys” teams Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as a private investigator and thug for hire in 1977 Los Angeles. The respective cases of a missing girl and a dead porn star are the first two threads that ultimately lead to a conspiracy, but this film isn’t exactly a whistleblowing mystery. “The Nice Guys” has tremendous action and thriller chops, but it’s truly a showcase for Gosling and Crowe, who perfectly enact the fractured and very funny characters scripted by Black and Anthony Bagarozzi. The script is among the best of Black’s career and the film is his directorial high point —as Black says in our interview, it could be the first of a small series of movies.
READ MORE: ‘Iron Man 3’ Is A Solid, Sometimes Surprising Start To Marvel’s Phase Two Movies
The Playlist sat down with Black in Los Angeles to discuss the history of “The Nice Guys,” and the conversation encompassed his favorite pulp novels, the appeal of flawed characters, and upcoming projects including “Predator,” which Black will direct from a script he wrote with Fred Dekker, and “Doc Savage.”
You wrote “The Nice Guys” script years ago.
From the time we started writing it to when we began filming was thirteen years.
My understanding is the original draft was quite different.
Yes, the first script was set in present day and founded on an idea which at the time was topical: it was about a sex tape. Everyone in the story is convinced that they’re trying to hide the fact that someone famous was in the sex tape by promoting this lookalike who it really was. By the end, there’s a bunch of reversals. That one was a fun script, but it didn’t go anywhere. Then we tried to do it as a TV show, and we switched it up again. I think an old lady was the villain by the end, although we still had the guy with the blue face and some of the same set pieces. Then it went to HBO, but they didn’t want it. Finally, it came together with these two guys.
It’s really remarkable to have worked on it so much over the course of thirteen years that you know these characters backwards and forwards. Which is why it seems so effortless: [even] the idea of a sequel, it’s [easy] because well, shit, man, we’ve got like three more plots.
“There’s a certain amount of money the movie would have to generate in order to warrant a sequel. I hope we have a hit movie. It’s fresh and interesting against a summer backdrop to have gruff guys in ties instead of tough guys in capes, in essence.” – Shane Black on a possible ‘Nice Guys’ sequel
So is a sequel actually on the boards at this point?
That’s the thing. There’s a certain amount of money, as you know, the movie would have to generate in order to warrant a sequel in the studio’s eyes. I hope we have a hit movie; I think we have a decent movie. It’s fresh and interesting against a summer backdrop to have gruff guys in ties instead of tough guys in capes, in essence. I prefer that, and not because I don’t like superheroes, but because there’s kind of a glut. We have to overcome being wedged halfway between ‘Captain America‘ and the ‘X-Men‘ and somehow navigate an audience out of that.
Is topicality important to you? Does it help a script land, either with execs or audiences?
Well, there’s an old axiom for writing in general but especially in screenwriting, which is “if you want to send a message, call Western Union.” If you can do something kind of timeless, a story that exists on its own merits but is reflective of themes that still apply today, I think that can be very effective. The abuse of power and the “knight in tarnished armor” theme of decadent L.A. is nice.
A character in decline is certainly a good, even classic, jumping off point.
Joseph Campbell tells a story about a couple driving. They see a man dangling off a cliff, hanging on by a branch. So this man in the car jumps out, runs down the hill, almost dies climbing down, but grabs the guy. And why would he risk his own life, leaving his children fatherless, for someone he’s never met before? It’s because he recognized a myth that was unfulfilled. He saw a pattern there, but there was a hole in it. It’s a missing piece, and the piece was the rescuer. So an age-old thing woke up in him, this drive to fulfill the myth. The call of that is stronger than even the necessity of being a parent.
“There’s an old axiom in screenwriting, which is ‘if you want to send a message, call Western Union.’ ”
In some ways, I think this [film] is about guys trying to fill shoes that are way too big for them. The myth of the L.A. private eye as an actual, adept hero exists. And here’s these two schmucks who are forced to step into these footprints they can’t possibly fill, weighed out against odds that are overpowering. That’s kind of the fun of it —that everything else is played straight and powerful and mean, except for these two bumblers.
That’s what made Clouseau so good, if you remember the Peter Sellers “Pink Panther” movies. Inspector Clouseau was always an idiot. The bad guys were played straight.