Script To Screen: “Lethal Weapon”

The jumper scene from the 1987 movie Lethal Weapon, written by Shane Black.

IMDb plot summary: A veteran cop, Murtaugh, is partnered with a young suicidal cop, Riggs. Both having one thing in common; hating working in pairs. Now they must learn to work with one another to stop a gang of drug smugglers.

In this scene, Riggs and Murtaugh show up at a scene where a guy is threatening to jump off a building. Riggs volunteers to talk down the guy.

Here is the scene from the movie:

There are some cosmetic differences, much of the dialogue presumably massaged and improvised on set, but the gist of the scene is very much the same. They did cut (or not shoot) Riggs sharing backstory about how his wife died. From a screenwriting perspective, it makes sense to use this jumper scene to lay in some key exposition, a way of hiding it in plain sight. But when you watch the movie, it doesn’t match the comedic tone of the scene as filmed, so that’s probably why that hit the cutting room floor.

One tonal change at the end: In the script, Riggs’ reaction post-jump is described as a “sour look on his face.” In the movie, Riggs is hooting and hollering, even suggesting they jump again. This heightens the sense of just how crazy Riggs is.

Lethal Weapon was a spec script that sold for a reported $250,000 and went on to spawn a big-time action comedy franchise. Well worth reading the script.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more Script To Screen articles, go here.