The “overhyped” movie Shane Black knew was doomed: “You’re just cutting your own throat”
Despite having a name that makes him sound like an action movie lead, Shane Black is actually one of the most important behind-the-scenes figures in the genre’s history, as he’s the one who came up with the idea for Lethal Weapon, the buddy cop juggernaut that made stars out of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.
In 1993, the Christmas-obsessed writer ticked off a major ‘action movie bucket list’ achievement by working with Arnold Schwarzenegger, penning the script for Last Action Hero, a film that gives ‘meta’ a whole new meaning.
Arnie plays a fictional character named Jack Slater who meets a boy, played by Austin O’Brien, from the real world who gets pulled into his movie universe via a magic ticket stub. It’s a great concept, and the cast is absolutely jam-packed with stars, but too bad nobody saw it.
Last Action Hero underdelivered at the box office and with critics yet still turned a decent profit, but considering the names involved, most people were disappointed with the result. According to an interview with Black conducted by AV Club, it was high expectations and backstage meddling that doomed this project from the very start.
“When you hype yourself up that much, you’re just cutting your own throat,” he said, “I don’t think there was a writer in Hollywood who wasn’t at one point asked to do a rewrite on Last Action Hero. It came back to me and my partner eventually; they just ran out of other people to ask. I think Carrie Fisher even worked on it at some point. So it was a painful experience.”
The “hype” Black is referring to wasn’t unwarranted as this was the writer from Lethal Weapon, the director of Die Hard, John McTiernan, and one of the biggest movie stars of all time coming together for a project that promised to be exciting, funny, and self-referential. And while, Last Action Hero turned out to be a victim of its own publicity, there may have been another unexpected reason why it didn’t do as well as warranted, and that’s dinosaurs.
The film was released just one week after Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg’s prehistoric powerhouse that was breaking all sorts of records and packing in audience members all over the world, and not even the might of Arnie could overcome its grip on the public imagination.
The press made a big deal out of this rivalry, and as Black recalled, he once opened a newspaper and saw a cartoon of Schwarzenegger arm wrestling a dinosaur to symbolise the upcoming clash. Unfortunately, Jurassic Park went on to become the highest-grossing movie of all time, while its competition was left in the dust.
For what it’s worth, I love Last Action Hero and think it delivers on its excellent concept and doesn’t get the love it deserves, with even Schwarzenegger calling it one of his most underrated films, but does any of this mean anything to Black? Probably not.
