Shane Black Talks Whether Or Not Schwarzenegger Will Be In 'Predator,' Almost Reteaming With Mel Gibson & Much More

Writer/director Shane Black is on the campaign trail for his latest movie, the detective buddy movie, “The Nice Guys,” starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. Reviews have called it a terrific film (including our own) and the filmmaker, who directed “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “Iron Man 3,has even been dreaming up sequel plans if the movie does well at the box-office.

READ MORE: 5 Scripts That Made Shane Black Hollywood’s Hottest Writer In The 1990s

But before he moved into directing in 2005, Black started out his career as a very successful screenwriter and one of the highest-paid writers in Hollywood ever. He wrote the “Lethal Weapon” movies, which turned Mel Gibson into a worldwide star, and he penned ’90s action hits like “The Last Boy Scout” and “The Long Kiss Goodnight.” He also had a small role in the original “Predator” movie and is now going to direct the reboot coming some time in 2017.

As “The Nice Guys” heads to theaters, many still want to know about Black’s storied past in Hollywood and what’s on deck for the filmmaker. And in one recent interview, a 45-minute talk on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Black dove into all of that. Here are some highlights.

Lethal Weapon

“Lethal Weapon” & Mel Gibson
Black says he “never, never” pictured Mel Gibson for the role of Riggs in “Lethal Weapon,” and in fact, wanted William Hurt for the part. But despite his wariness at first, Black said Gibson was “brilliant.”

Years later, Black wrote a movie specifically for Gibson, but it never got off the ground as the actor was still mired controversy following the ugly, racist comments he made during his bitter divorce, and after being arrested for drunk driving. “I tried [to reteam with him] in 2008, we were going to do something called ‘The Cold Warrior,’” Black said. “Unfortunately, that was the crux of the industry’s rejection of [Mel] and the subsequent blackballing.”

“The Long Kiss Goodnight” sequel that never happened
“I have [thought about a sequel]. I even talked to Sam[uel L. Jackson], we went in and pitched it, and the studio said no,” he revealed. “The idea was that we focus on Sam years later, coping with Geena Davis’ daughter as she’s goes into college and the past comes back to haunt them in a way. We hadn’t worked it out entirely, but we felt there was something there because Sam is such a brilliant — he’s the best actor I’ve ever worked with, by the way. I don’t mean to take away from anyone, but I’ve never seen anyone love acting that much.”

Predator

The Aim For The Upcoming “Predator” Reboot
“I think ideally we are endeavoring to get back to what [producers] Joel Silver and John Davis managed to pull off with [director] John McTiernan,” he said of the new film’s intentions. “Now that said, I don’t wanna make it huge. It’s not about 50 predators [running] over the mountain. But short of the armada scenes that don’t help the film, I think that having a sense of event-izing [the movie], making it feel fresh like that first movie, is gonna be helpful.”

Black lamented what 20th Century Fox did with the “Predator” and “Alien” franchise in the ’90s and ’00s (“they were just churning them out” he said, noting they all had a low $40-50 million budgets and were conceived simply to make back their money). “I’m not going to predict success for this [new ‘Predator’ movie], but I’d love to give it the opportunity to be that ambitious so that it aspires to ultimately be the serious summer movie that ‘Alien’ was back in the day.”

Will Arnold Schwarzenegger Appear In The Film?
“There’s one of two ways we can go. We use Schwarzenegger or we don’t. And there’s advantages to using him and there’s a story to be told if we don’t, and I’m not going to tell you which one we chose, but we made a choice that I think is cool and we’ll see what happens,” Black said.

shane-black-robert-downey-jr-iron-man-3Marvel
Black said he didn’t think Robert Downey Jr. or the Iron Man character needs to be retired any time soon (“There’s an infinite variety that Tony Stark can do as long as you don’t ever let him conquer the demons”). And while the director says he would love the opportunity to go back to Marvel one day (“I’m such a huge fan of [what they do]. I’d be happy to go back under the right circumstances. I would very much be open to the possibilities of Marvel”), he sounded a little traumatized by the outcry from hardcore fans angered by what he and Marvel did to Mandarin, the villain character in “Iron Man 3.”

He mentioned an Internet meme he saw the other day: “It’s a picture of my face on a body being ass raped by the Mandarin and it says, ‘Prepare your anus!,’ ” he said in disbelief. The director also sounded slightly bummed about the Marvel One Shot short centered around Mandarin that was released on home video.

“Marvel made an entire movie to apologize for it,” he said. “They made this thing called ‘Hail To The King’ where they said, ‘sorry, sorry, it’s not really him! I swear, there is a real Mandarin!’ They went into retreat mode. I’m not disavowing [the short], but I don’t think it would exist if there hadn’t been fan blowback.”

All told, it’s a great talk with the director, and can you listen to the full 45-minute Happy Sad Confused talk below, followed by another 30-minute chat with KCRW.