Shane Black

On his way to becoming one of the highest-paid screenwriters in motion picture history, Shane Black redefined the action movie by flipping its stale conventions upon its head while producing untold numbers of pale imitators. Black shot to the top of the class with his first script, "Lethal Weapon" (1987), which resuscitated the buddy cop genre on its way to becoming one of the biggest hits of the year. It also spawned three sequels over the next decade, but Black only had his hand in writing the original draft for "Lethal Weapon 2" (1989). Meanwhile, he landed a huge payday for his spec for "The Last Boy Scout" (1991) and became one of Hollywood's top-earning rewrite specialists, raking in a cool million per job. But nothing compared to the $4 million score he managed for "The Long Kiss Goodnight" (1996), especially in light of the action flick's subsequent failure at the box office. After taking nearly a decade off to throw some of Hollywood's most notorious parties, Black reemerged as the writer and director of "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" (2005), a hilarious and highly-entertaining action-comedy that unfortunately flopped at the box office, but nonetheless put him on sure footing for a solid comeback.