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Original The Last Boy Scout Script



http://www.movie-page.com/scripts/The-Last-Boy-Scout.pdf

It is a more serious tone than the completed film. I decided to look this up after reading this in the trivia section:

Tony Scott also spoke about how miserable production was, largely because Silver and Bruce Willis took over the production, altered parts of Shane Black's script, and made him shoot scenes he hated under threat of being fired and having to forfeit his salary.

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Interesting, anymore gossip about behind the scenes of the film. I think the final film is fine the way it is, my only problem would be the finale was alittle lackluster be still an underrated classic.

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Yeah, Marcone's death could have been better.

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Where did you get that information about Tony Scott being forced to do what Willis wanted under threat of being fired? That sounds a little strange, especially considering he was just coming off of the massive failure of Hudson Hawk. You wouldn't think they paid 1.75 million dollars to Shane Black--setting a major precedent in doing so--only to cut up the screenplay they paid that money for...for the benefit of a guy who was at the lowest point of his career since he hit it big with Die Hard.

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I got the info from the trivia section of IMDB. However I found this:

http://www.empireonline.com/features/tony-scott-on-tony-scott/p5

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Interesting that he didn't mention Revenge starring Kevin Costner. I think that's one of Costner's most underrated movies. Shame about Boy Scout though. Maybe the changing of Black's script had to do with budget concerns. And I wonder if the kidnappers on Man On Fire were trying to kidnap Denzel?

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According to the trivia section of this film; "In the original script, the entire third act was set on water."

Is this true? And what did they mean by that?

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Boat chase, if I remember right. There was also a more drawn out backstory with Baynard. I think his son was involved as well.

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I think his son was involved as well.

He was. In the screenplay, Baynard's son was in a car crash where he killed a mother and her son while drink driving (at least that's what I remember, it's been a while since I read it). Hallenbeck witnessed everything and in a fit of rage he used one of his deadly punches to knock Baynard's son out cold. The punch not only puts the son in a coma but also deforms his face. Then during the third act of the screenplay, *Spoiler alert* the son returns and acts as the main antagonist.

WINGED FREAK...Terrorizes?....Wait till they get a load of me...

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Interesting. That actually sounds pretty badass. I recently read an interview Tony Scott had given, where he seemed resentful that the movie didn't match original plans, but I like the movie the way it turned out. This also seems cool, though.

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Yeah the screenplays a cool read but like many of Shane Black's scripts, it's a lot darker when compared to it's movie counterpart.

WINGED FREAK...Terrorizes?....Wait till they get a load of me...

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I just remember little notes he'd throw in for the reader ("my mom reads this sh.t!") that you knew only he could write because he was Shane Black.

I just wish he'd return to form.

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Oh yeah I remember that, when he refuses to write the sex scene in detail. There's also one during the Lethal Weapon screenplay where he's describing a luxurious L.A. penthouse and mentions that he plans to buy one just like it if the movie is a success

WINGED FREAK...Terrorizes?....Wait till they get a load of me...

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Yes, I remember that too!

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Was there more action scenes in the original scripts?

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I not sure if there's more but the climax is a lot more elaborate.

WINGED FREAK...Terrorizes?....Wait till they get a load of me...

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I'd really like to read this script, but the link above appears to be broken now... Is there any one that would be willing to send me or point me to where I can find?

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Tony Scott also spoke about how miserable production was, largely because Silver and Bruce Willis took over the production, altered parts of Shane Black's script, and made him shoot scenes he hated under threat of being fired and having to forfeit his salary.
After the gawd-awful 'Hudson Hawk' I'm amazed that the makers of this film would allow Willis any say on this movie other than "where's my mark?"

This film was certainly better than 'Hawk' but I suspect it would have been even better if Willis had just done the job he was paid to do, which was to act. By the way, I'm definitely not anti-Willis. I like a lot of his films and think he's a great movie-star but the man's ego when it comes to making films is astronomical, and although he's made a few classics it's usually been because the filmmaker in charge (whether it's been Tarantino, McTiernan, Gilliam or Shyamalan) have kept a tight reign on the production.

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I just read it: http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Last-Boy-Scout,-The.html

• Jimmy is a white dude with blonde hair.

• Joe says, "Smile, you *beep*” a couple more times in the film and it’s the last line.

• The kids at the start try to take Joe's bottle of Seagrams, not his watch.

• At the League pool party Jimmy stumbles upon a poker game in the house and asks one of the players, Henry, if he remembers what crazy *beep* he did last night. Henry says he pooped in a car. Henry then asks Jimmy when is he gonna come look at his gun collection. Jimmy says 'soon'. Jimmy remembers this later.

• The pool party is the only scene we see Ray (Jimmy throws the ball at him).

• Mike Matthews (now Miller) explains to Joe he didn't leave Joe’s house as soon as he realised Joe was back in town because Sarah said he'd never come by the house once he's at the office.

• Joe already suspects Mike is banging Sarah, that's why he came home. In fact it’s the 3rd time she's cheated but she doesn't know Joe knows about the other guys.

• Joe wears a suit to meet Cory at Mike's insistence to look good unlike last time.

• Cory was not dating Marcon. Baynard's son, Louis, was a regular at the strip club and got drunk and divulged information to Cory about Marcon and the Senator's deal. She intended to blackmail him and hired Mike to follow him to get hard evidence, not to protect her.

• There is a sex scene between Jimmy and Cory just before they toast to "Alex the pediatrician" but Cory never mentions getting Jimmy's old job back. We never find out what she was blackmailing for.

• The $650 pants becomes $80 shirts.

• Jimmy nearly punches a pimp for striking a hooker in the cop station until Joe stops him warning it is the wrong place to start fights. Jimmy says it’s wrong to hit women. Joe asks is it because they're weak and need protection to which Jimmy replies yes. Joe laughs at how stupid that is.

• There is no cassette tape. Instead it’s the photo of Conrad/Connie (not Shelly) Marcon and Baynard.

• Joe tells Jimmy when he was 30 and working for Baynard, he came across Baynard's son's (Louis) crashed car one night on his way home. Louis was drunk driving and caused the death of a mom and son in a car accident. Louis slips Joe $100 to lie for him and cover his butt and get his dad to help him. Joe refuses and in anger punches Louis who's head hits the asphalt hard and sends him into a coma, disfigures his face and damages his brain. Baynard Snr fixes it with the cops, the accident report goes missing and then cocaine is planted in Joe's house out of revenge for his son and Joe is fired.

• There is no punching out Baynard to save the girl in the S&M scene.

• We're introduced to Milo in a scene where he's on a film shoot. He is a snuff film maker. He leads girls into thinking they're shooting porn until Pablo comes out with a chainsaw. After this he takes a call from Marcon telling him to track down Joe.

• When Joe finds the bomb in Cory's car he encourages Jimmy to cut the wire. Joe screams, "NOT THAT ONE!" as a joke and Jimmy panics.

• Jimmy's wife didn't die in a truck accident. She was a junkie but he didn't know until her inevitable death. He was only 19.

• Joe stops Darian from getting her card signed just as Jimmy is leaving the house. Jimmy tells Joe where he's staying in case he still wants his help. Darian remembers this later. Later at home Jimmy flushes away the rest of his drugs.

• Jimmy isn't thrown onto the road by Chet and Pablo, he is thrown into a shallow water-filled pit on a car park construction site and breaks his throwing arm in the process.

• After Joe kills Chet at Marcon's pool, Milo brings out a kidnapped Sarah who they threaten to kill in a snuff film unless Joe co-operates in their plan to kill Senator Baynard.

EVERY SCENE AFTER THIS IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TO THE FINISHED FILM.

• Darian goes to Jimmy's place for help after she is informed by note that her parents have been kidnapped by Milo. The note says her parents will die of she goes to the cops.

• Joe and Sarah are taken to a pier. Joe boards Milo's yacht. Sarah tells Joe she loves him and encourages him to save them and be a hero. They squabble about Sarah's infidelity; this is the "F U, Sarah" scene. Pablo fondles Sarah's tits. As Joe boards the boat leaving Sarah behind he tells her reassuringly, "I'll be back. I promise." Pablo then hits Joe and Joe says, "Touch me again, I'll kill ya."

• Jimmy goes to his poker player friend, Henry to borrow a gun.

• Milo calls Marcon to tell him he and Joe are en route via yacht to give Senator Baynard the briefcase at sea off Catalina Island. Baynard will be coming from a party on the island. Marcon confirms he'll put in an appearance at the party too. Marcon is in his office during the call with an unidentified man in the shadows who asks if things are going as planned.

• Jimmy hires a boat to take out to the party at Catalina where he plans to confront Marcon and order him to hand over Joe and Sarah or he'll go to the cops. We're not told how Jimmy knows where Marcon will be. He tells Darian he'll get her folks back and orders her to go home.

• While out at sea, Milo preps his rifle on his yacht infront of Joe and gets ready to take out Baynard. This is the, "I would like to hear you scream in pain" scene. Milo reveals the plan; Baynard will leave the party early to rendez-vous with Milo at sea to give him the pay-off but instead he'll get a case full of explosives. When Baynard gets the bomb on his boat and after it blows, Milo will kill Joe by burning him with gasoline ("Maybe I'll get to hear you scream after all") and leave his charred body on Baynard's boat to make it look like a suicide attack. Milo's men alert him to a family out on a small fishing boat with a stalled engine who ask for a tow. Milo refuses but the father says he'll end up having to call the coastguard for help then instead. Milo massacres the family with his machine gun. Joe is tied and gagged and locked in a small compartment below deck.

• Jimmy on his boat heads out to the party on the island and gets in a tux and loads a Beretta. Darian has stowed away on board. Jimmy reaches the island but sees Baynard leaving on his boat so decides to follow him out to sea instead but eventually Jimmy loses him in the thick fog.

• A helicopter belonging to Milo's men informs Milo that Baynard is on his way. The two boats pull up alongside each other and Baynard's aide boards Milo's boat. The briefcase switch happens like in the finished film.

• Meanwhile Jimmy still lost in the fog on his boat is suddenly face to face with Milo's chopper as Jimmy's boat heads towards Milo's. Seems he was heading in the right direction after all luckily. Baynard's boat is still nearby and spot's Jimmy's right next to Milo's. Thinking it’s a set-up Baynard's men panic and drive their boat away. Jimmy's boat flees too as Milo gives chase and orders the chopper to follow Baynard. Milo opens fire on Jimmy.

• Joe still below-deck hears the voices above including Jimmy and Darian's screams. In a rage Joe kicks open the compartment door he's trapped in, stumbles out and manages to knock over the can of gasoline pouring its content over the floor. He manages to light a kitchen match with his teeth and puts his tied legs over the flames until the rope snaps. His legs are on fire now and he runs above deck and jumps in the sea.

• Jimmy and Darian spot Joe in the water and drag him in with their anchor as their boat speeds along. Milo's men are distracted as they try to put out the fire on their boat except Milo who spots Joe in the water and opens fire. Joe, Jimmy and Darian speed off escaping gun-fire but Milo is in hot pursuit.

• In the chase through the fog Jimmy's boat crashes into the shore, they're sitting ducks. Milo's chopper then appears right beside them with the co-pilot aiming a LAWS rocket right at them. Just then Milo's boat comes out of the fog from nowhere and crashes into the chopper. There is an explosion.

• Jimmy and co get on their feet and notice Baynard's wrecked boat nearby. The chopper must have attacked it with the LAWS. Jimmy manages to steer his crashed boat towards Baynard’s where they retrieve the bomb briefcase floating in the water. Jimmy and Joe make their way back to Joe's home while Darian is told to go to a friend's restaurant where Joe will pick her up later after he's rescued Sarah. Meanwhile Milo is found alive floating at sea on debris by a coastguard.

• Upon arrival at Joe's home he and Jimmy spot a cop parked outside Joe's house on a stake-out. The cops now have Joe as prime suspect in Mike's death. Joe manages to knock the cop out and drags him into the house and ties him. Joe gets changed into black combat gear and loads a rifle and hands Jimmy a shotgun and the shredders. He tells Jimmy to go get the car and drive it around. When Jimmy gets to the car he is knocked out by Milo's men and taken away.

• Joe gets ready to leave his house to meet Jimmy outside but is stopped by Pablo and goons standing in the doorway. They shoot the tied up cop infront of Joe. Pablo orders to Joe to write a suicide note saying he hired men to kill Baynard on the boat and the cop in his house. Joe escapes by doing the Furry Tom ventriloquist act, the puppet just happened to be near him with the gun inside already(!) Pablo and his men are stunned by how good at Joe is at ventriliquism. In the fight Joe eventually kills Pablo by stabbing him with his sharp Presidential Medal of Valor.

• Meanwhile Jimmy has been taken to Marcon's home. Joe manages to infiltrate Marcon's home taking out guards along the way. He rescues Jimmy and demands Sarah's location holding Marcon at gun-point. Marcon reveals Sarah is at Milo's snuff studio. Just then the shadowy unknown man from Marcon's office appears and has Joe at gun-point and orders him to release Marcon. The unknown man is revealed to be Louis Baynard (the senator's DUI son who Joe sent into a coma). He also reveals it was he who revealed too much info to Cory. Jimmy and Joe are about to be executed when Jimmy and Joe escape using the "keys that shred" gimmick. Marcon escapes and Louis Baynard is shot by Joe.

• Marcon gets away in his car and passes Jimmy's abandoned car that was left near Joe's house. The briefcase is in the back and Marcon picks it up. *beep* Joe Boy, you weren't bluffing!"

• Jimmy and Joe drive to Milo's studio. They take out the guards and burst in on a naked Sarah about to be chainsawed by a goon on film. Joe and Jimmy shoot the film crew and chainsaw guy. Joe tells Jimmy to take one of the goon's cars get the case from Jimmy's car (they don't know Marcon beat them to it) and to come meet him at Joe's office where he'll call the police.

• Joe picks up Darian and reunites her with Sarah back at his office. Joe goes outside to greet who he thinks is a cop pulling up but it is in fact a stolen Long Beach Shore patrol car. Out steps a disfigured Milo, guns blazing and angry, "You *beep* up my face!"

• Joe dives for cover and climbs up the billboard (from Joe's opening scene) outside his office with the hot girl on it. He jumps for the freeway from the platform and Milo follows shooting all the way. Suddenly Milo is shot from behind and his chest explodes. Sarah shoots him with Joe's gun. Milo's blood splatters all over the billboard.

• Jimmy arrives in his car just in time to see Milo get shot. He leads Joe and Sarah to the trunk of the car to reveal Marcon got the wrong case. Marcon is seen packing his bags to get out of town. He opens the case and reads the note “*beep* you.” He blows up like in the film.

• Jimmy and Joe contemplate what to do with the money. Joe takes just $200 for Cory's fee and they leave the rest to a Cancer Research Centre. They talk about partnership, drink to Alex The Detective, Joe warns Jimmy about Satan Claws and says, "Smile, you *beep*” and the film ends.



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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TheLastBoyScout

In the original script, the entire third act was set on water. Also, Hallenbeck's grudge with senator Baynard was completely different from the movie. In the script, Hallenbeck was working security for the Baynard family when Louis Baynard, President Baynard's son, kills a mother and her child in a drunken car accident. When Hallenbeck refuses to cover for the president's son, they plant half a kilo of crack cocaine in his house. Louis Baynard was also a villain in the script, and in the end both he and his father die.

Shane Black's original draft was very different than the final film. Besides having a darker tone with more violence and gore, almost the entire second half of the script was completely different. Besides many differences with the plot and characters, Black's script also included more focus on the two villains Milo and Shelly Marcone. Milo, for example, was an even nastier villain than he is in the film. In the script, besides being a hit man for Marcone, he also had a side hustle as a director of snuff films in which his men would kill kidnapped women in very violent ways. There was also a scene in the script where he brutally kills an entire family who accidentally showed up near the place where a meeting between his and Baynard's men took place. Other parts that were changed include: a big boat chase scene with Joe and Jimmy trying to escape from Milo and his men chasing them through the fog until their boat and helicopter crash into each other, a shootout and fight scene between Joe and Marcone's men in Joe's house, another shootout in Marcone's mansion in which Joe sneaks in after killing several guards, and Joe and Jimmy saving Joe's wife Sarah from being killed with a chainsaw in one of Milo's snuff films and a different final showdown between Joe and Milo which took place outside Joe's office and after he chases and tries to shoot Joe while on foot, Milo gets killed by Sarah who shoots him with Joe's gun.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNvFRa6oNPQ

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