A rush for original scripts led to Shane Black being among the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood.
Ryan takes a look back…
This article originally appeared on Den of Geek UK.
Shane Black, 28 years old, poses for a photograph outside his Los Angeles bungalow.
To his left, a trio of metal garbage cans, their lids strangely missing.
And where theres money, journalists usually find a story.
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Blacks style of writing certainly had a youthful, sensationalist swagger about it.
One oft-quoted line in the script reads:
EXT.
POSH BEVERLY HILLS HOME TWILIGHTThe kind of house that Ill buy if this movie is a huge hit.
Black, on the other hand, had a difficult relationship with the franchise hed unwittingly created.
When Blacks agents began hawkingThe Last Boy Scoutaround Hollywood, it resulted in a feeding frenzy.
Fox took a look at it and offered $850,000 on the spot.
Gasmer was an agent at William Morris, one of the most prestigious talent agencies in Hollywood.
Interest in the Hollywood clamor for spec scripts regularly broke headlines as the prices climbed ever higher.
But with a finished screenplay, a movie star has nowhere to go except yes or no.
BuyingThe Ticking Mantook me to a place where I could get a yes or no instead of a maybe.
Joe Eszterhas sold his treatment for the erotic thrillerJadefor $2.5 million in 1992.
Once again, Blacks name was associated with a small club of obscenely well-paid, usually white male screenwriters.
Not just beat it, nuke it.
Even $100,000, people talk about it.
Then again, theres also a mythical quality to the spec script boom of the 90s.
Scripts seldom change hands for millions of dollars.
