In the 1980s and 1990s, writer Shane Black became one of Hollywood’s most highly paid screenwriters when he reinvented the action genre by revitalizing buddy cop tropes. Films like “Lethal Weapon” and “The Last Boy Scout” turned him into the rare famous screenwriting name, but eventually, he would turn towards his own directing career. While he has made big-budget, high-concept movies like Marvel‘s “Iron Man 3” and the recent “The Predator,” he’s more arguably more beloved for his witty crime comedies like “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “The Nice Guys.” To that end, it looks like Black will reteam with his “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” start Robert Downey Jr. for a reunion that sounds like it’s more in the vein of funny, action-comedy crime films.
Matthew Belloni of Puck’s What I’m Hearing newsletter reports that the duo is reteaming for a new film based on Parker, the career criminal anti-hero character created by author Donald Westlake and Richard Stark for Amazon Studios.
Parker is likely best known as the lead character in the Lee Marvin movie “Point Blank” set in San Francisco during the swinging ’60s and was remade in 1999 with “Payback” starring Mel Gibson. Robert Duvall, Jim Brown. Jason Statham also played the crook in a 2013 edition.
If you’re unfamiliar with the 1967 classic film based on Stark’s novel “The Hunter,” here is the logline: “A ruthless crook, Walker (Lee Marvin), is betrayed by his partner, Mal Reese (John Vernon), who leaves him for dead on Alcatraz Island. Having survived, Walker returns years later to get revenge. He gets his first lead when a mysterious man (Keenan Wynn) tells him that Reese is now part of a vast criminal organization and dating Walker’s wife’s sister, Chris (Angie Dickinson). But after contacting Chris, Walker discovers that in truth, she loathes Reese and is willing to help him get justice.”
READ MORE: HBO Is Developing A ‘Sphere’ Series Produced By ‘Westworld’ Creators & Robert Downey, Jr.
Downey Jr. playing a character like Parker is undoubtedly going against type for the actor and the character. The character Parker is fairly irredeemable and doesn’t have the same moral compass that characters like Sherlock Holmes or Tony Stark had. Presumably, a “Parker” film would be much more hardboiled than what we saw in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” or any of Downey Jr.’s recent films. Perhaps, this is the shot in the arm he needs, given many of his non-Marvel movies have struggled to find an audience at the box office in recent years.
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