Mel Gibson’s name is the one on this story’s headline, because he’s Mel Gibson. But for me the real story here isn’t his involvement, rather it’s the return of Shane Black.
THR says that five years after his brilliantly underwatched directorial debut Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Shane Black is getting back behind the camera for a movie called Cold Warrior. Black is probably best known as the scribe behind Mel Gibson’s Lethal Weapon movies, and much as I love those movies, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is even better. Black has talent as both a writer and a director. It’s great to see him getting more work.
Black’s Cold Warrior will star Mel Gibson as a Cold War era spy who comes out of retirement to take on a domestic terrorism threat from, weirdly enough, Russia. Who knew they had any fight left in them? Mel’s retiree is paired up with a younger agent to stop the Ruskies.
If there’s any downside here at all, it’s that Black wasn’t involved in writing it. Instead this is based on a script from someone named Charles Mondry, who probably can’t write insanely cool dialogue in quite the same way Shane can. Maybe when no one’s looking, he can give it a second pass.
