If the director you hire for your film is best known as a great writer, you’re probably better off if you let him write the script too. If you don’t, you’ll end up with Cop Out. It seemed like Marvel understood this, Joss Whedon is working on the script for The Avengers after all, but today word came down that Shane Black isn’t writing Iron Man 3. They’ve hired Drew Pearce to pen it instead.
Drew Pearce is best know as the writer of, well, nothing. At least not in the way of movies. He has done some British television. Shane Black on the other hand is responsible for writing some of the best action movies of all time, in the form of all four Lethal Weapon movies. He also scripted The Last Boyscout and the underrated movie The Long Kiss Goodnight. Oh and he wrote Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang, one of the best written movies of the past decade. But he won’t be writing Iron Man 3, just directing. This Drew Pearce guy either has one heck of an idea, or Black just didn’t want the gig.
The good news is that Deadline claims Pearce will work closely with Black. Maybe with a little prodding Shane will get involved and actually do a little writing. We don’t want the Iron Man version of Cop Out on our hands.
