Much like a movie pitch would state "It's Die Hard meets Alien", Shane Black's narrative voice could be said to be Walter Hill meets William Goldman. Which is great considering that new screenwriters could merge the styles of their two favorite writers in order to find their own voice. So...S. Craig Zahler meets Brian Duffield anyone?

While I share Shane's influences, it never really occurred to me that there really is an evolutionary thread from Bill Goldman through Walter Hill to Shane Black. Who would you consider to be next in that chain? Also, lest we forget, the script Shane Black is really known for is Lethal Weapon and his signature style of breaking down the 4th wall and essentially conversing with the reader. Nobody had really written like that before, and it spawned a truckload of imitators.

I'd say that Brian Duffield would be pretty close to next in that chain. His scripts are a breeze to read and an absolute delight. It's like your best bro telling you a story. The takeaway is that screenwriters would benefit immensely from just writing like they're telling their story to their best friend, because really, that's what you what you want an overworked script reader to be.

pliny, Black REALLY broke the 4th wall in "Boy Scout," talking directly to the script reader about a particular sex scene where he just stopped describing it, then laid down a list of reasons why, ending with "Because my mother reads this shit" [IIRC]. That spawned -- and I'm just guessing here -- 10 BILLION Shane Black wannabe scripts to clog their way through Hollywood.

True, but in my defense, Lethal Weapon was first. btw & fyi: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/22/shane-black-12-rounds