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Shane Black has been writing killer screenplays for a while now, but as a director he only has two films under his belt—both of which are home runs. The noir caper Kiss Kiss Bang Bang couldn’t be more different than Black’s Marvel spin Iron Man 3, but both films are unmistakably from the same filmmaker with the same sensibility, and so it’s with great anticipation that we all await Black’s next directorial effort, the 70s-set caper The Nice Guys.

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Image via Misty Mountains

The film is a two-hander with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as a private investigator and enforcer, respectively, who get caught up in a web of intrigue as they investigate the case of a missing girl. The movie undoubtedly has the same flavor as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, so when Collider’s own Steve Weintraub was able to chat with Black just before the Warner Bros. presentation at CinemaCon, he discussed the connection between the two movies:

“I think it’s inevitable if you know the first film that you will probably recognize this as being very similar in tone. The comedy caper in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, obviously it had some drama in it, it had some romance in it, hopefully we have the same sort of levels but also the same sort of cracked feeling, that sort of off-beat feeling. That would be my goal, is that it’s similar to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in its tone even if the characters are slightly different.”

So if you’re a fan of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (and if you’re not, what’s wrong with you?), odds seem pretty good that you’re gonna love The Nice Guys when it opens in theaters on May 20th.

For more of our CinemaCon coverage, peruse the recent links below.

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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Warner Bros.

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