Shane Black Reuniting with Mel Gibson!

One of my favorite films of the 2000's is Shane Black's 2005 directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Black is one of a rare breed of hotshot Hollywood screenwriters. He once famously earned $4 million dollars for his script for The Long Kiss Goodnight, making him the highest paid writer out there at the time, and his first sold screenplay was for Lethal Weapon. Needless to say if you don't know who this dude is, familiarize yourself immediately.

You can understand my excitement, then, when The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog brought news to my desktop that Black and his Lethal Weapon star Mel Gibson are reteaming for a Universal film called Cold Warrior. Synopsis, deploy:

The film is about a spy from the Cold War era (Gibson) who comes out of retirement to team with a younger agent from the new school to confront a domestic terrorism threat orchestrated by Russia.

UPDATE: I just realized that Dr. Venkman already posted early reports about this movie way back in 2008. That makes Mel Gibson's involvement the only relevant bit of news here. Carry on.

The only reason my excitement meter isn't turned up to 11 just yet is because Black didn't write the script like he did for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Charles Mondry handled the writing...yeah, I had never heard of him either. After a little digging, I found out that he sold another script to Columbia Pictures way back in 2000. As far as I can tell that film has never actually been made, but it's an awesome-sounding thriller called Tick-Tock. Here's the synopsis:

A man with amnesia is the prime suspect for a series of L.A. bombings. Not sure whether he is indeed the bomber or whether he was set up, the suspect must lead an FBI agent on a race to disarm the remaining explosives.

So even though Mondry hasn't proven himself to general audiences yet, I think there's enough here for me to get pretty pumped about Cold Warrior. Personally, I'm interested to see how Shane Black handles himself behind the camera (only his second directing gig) on a project which he didn't write. Funny, that's the only reason I have even an inkling of interest in Cop Out - Kevin Smith is in the same situation with that film.

Cold Warrior is still in the "early stages" of deal-making, so we'll keep you posted with more information as it becomes available.