Shane Black On Bringing Parker To The Screen In Play Dirty

Never before has Parker, the professional thief of Donald E. Westlake’s novels, officially made it to the big screen. Which is strange, since several of Westlake’s Parker novels have, in fact, been adapted into movies – like John Boorman’s 1967 Point Blank , John Flynn’s 1973 The Outfit , and Brian Helgeland’s 1999 Payback . In all of those, the Parker role went under a different moniker, due to Westlake’s insistence that the character only be properly named should a franchise of films arise. Enter Shane Black, whose Play Dirty is – at long last – giving us Parker. Even though this one, technically, is not directly based on any of Westlake’s novels.

It’s fair to say that Black is a huge fan of the oeuvre, though. “I used to say that if noir was a fine whiskey, Westlake’s the stu