Shane Black’s original title for this one was Die Hard, but Joel Silver liked that title so much that he asked to borrow it for a different project he had in development, something called Nothing Lasts Forever. It came out in 1988, you may have heard of it?
Black had written Lethal Weapon at 22 for $250,000, and by 1990 he was commanding $1.75 million for a spec script, then the highest price ever paid for one.
Yet this production was one of the more legendary disasters of the era.
Willis and Silver rewrote Black’s script throughout filming while Scott shot scenes under threat of being fired and forfeiting his salary. Seven editors took runs at the cut. The original assembly came back borderline unwatchable and rated NC-17. Silver later called it one of the three worst experiences of his life, and Scott was so scarred he based the cola-dealing movie producer in True Romance directly on Silver, making sure the character looked just like him too.
What survived is genuinely worth your time, though. Willis plays one of the most thoroughly unpleasant protagonists Black ever put on paper.
Black went on to sell The Long Kiss Goodnight for $4 million in 1994, another record, another theatrical disappointment that found its real audience on home video, and then stepped away from Hollywood for the better part of a decade, later saying he’d developed a growing contempt for his own commercial material.
But that was the 90s, having contempt for your own material was kind of a fashion statement.
-Pop
The Last Boy Scout arrived on Home Video this week in 1992, after a December 13, 1991 theatrical release.