‘Overnight’ Success Made His Day--After 11 Years of Work at Film Writing

Bounding over San Francisco’s hills, Dirty Harry Callahan outruns a miniature radio-controlled car that’s been trying to race up his exhaust pipe with its load of explosives.

That’s a key scene in “The Dead Pool,” the latest in the Dirty Harry series, in which the now-famous renegade detective is himself being stalked by a psychopath. So, even though he doesn’t care much for most of the media celebrities who have been getting killed, he goes after the slimy cretin who has been killing them.

Meanwhile, 450 miles down the coast in Huntington Beach, Steve Sharon, 32, lives a bit more quietly. The screenwriter who put the words in Harry’s mouth shares his beach-city home with his wife, Brooke, and drives a Honda Civic.

On opening night, a group of friends wanted to throw a party for him. He thanked them--and then stayed home to baby-sit his daughters, Kelly, 9, and Devon, 8.

On July 13, “The Dead Pool” took in $2.1 million on opening day, breaking the Warner Bros. record for a Wednesday release. The film is showing at 1,831 U.S. theaters, is ranked fourth nationally in terms of weekend box-office gross and has racked up more than $23 million in ticket sales to date.

One price of commercial success is having to read the reviews. “Some people like it. Some people don’t,” said Sharon, whose “overnight” success with “The Dead Pool” came after 11 years and five scripts.

“I have no problems with criticism. If you’re willing to take the credit, you should be willing to take the criticism.”

And some critics have shown the film as much mercy as Harry shows sniveling villains.

“Shallow,” said The Times’ Michael Wilmington.

Gary Franklin of KABC blasted it as “blunt,” “unsubtle,” “terrible,” then added: “The writing must be the result of post-Proposition 13 education. Elementary level.”

On the other hand, the syndicated team of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel gave “The Dead Pool” two thumbs up. And the San Jose Mercury News’ John Orr pronounced it “A surprisingly clever script . . . that dances on a razor blade of parody.”

A 1977 MFA graduate of UCLA’s screenwriting program, Sharon has been at it full time ever since and has produced more than 10 radio drama scripts that were nationally syndicated by the Mutual Radio Network, as well as five screenplays that cover such diverse genres as science fiction, Western, comedy and police thriller.

Sharon wouldn’t say how much of the take from “The Dead Pool” will go into his pocket, only that he is “very happy” with his cut. That should help balance the scales for the tough years he spent pursuing scriptwriting.

“I’ve made a living on the options and the radio dramas,” he said, “and my wife works as an interior designer, so that really helped in the lean times. I would still be writing even if nothing was getting filmed. I enjoy it, and I was confident that I could do it. You don’t get options because you can’t write; you get options because your ideas are good and people like them.”

Sharon met “Dead Pool” star and producer Clint Eastwood through Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, authors of the holistic health best seller “Life Extension.” Sharon contacted the couple while researching a science-fiction script.

The three clicked and developed three projects together. One day Pearson mentioned that Eastwood might be interested in one of their scripts. Eastwood optioned it. It wasn’t produced, but the way had been paved for “Dead Pool.”

Sharon’s script underwent many rewrites. One scene that survived intact is a dead-on parody of every San Francisco car chase from the classic sequence in “Bullitt” through the Dirty Harry series itself.

A trip to a dirt track for remote-controlled model cars at Fountain Valley’s Mile Square Park inspired Sharon’s twist on the cliche. “Everybody’s seen car chases,” he said. We wanted to do something that was different--a parody of all the car chases you’ve ever seen going up and down the hills of San Francisco.

“In that sense, many of the elements in the ‘Dead Pool’ are not meant to be taken seriously. By the time you get to the fourth sequel, a lot of it is tongue in cheek.”

In the “Dead Pool,” a cult horror film director runs a betting pool predicting celebrity deaths--and the celebrities on his list are expediently being knocked off.

The “dead pool” concept came from a number of different sources, Sharon said. A reporter once told him about members of the media organizing a betting pool while holding a death watch outside a star’s home. Similar stories of such gallows humor abound in the media and law enforcement.

“Death is such a staple of the news,” he noted.

Sharon has been criticized for the film’s assault on professionalism--or lack of it--in the media. He attacks pack journalism and its invasion of individual privacy. He also takes a hard look at what he sees as a media tendency to exploit tragic situations.

“This film is designed to be provocative--to bring up those types of questions,” he said. “I don’t have any grudge against reporters. They are generally responsible people who do their job with a great deal of sensitivity and professionalism, but there are a few who don’t.”

At least a portion of the movie-going public seems to agree with Sharon. At screenings Sharon attended, the audience cheered when the Eastwood character broke the video camera of an overzealous news crew.

“I think that people would like to see that happen to reporters who behave in that fashion,” he said. “It satisfies some of the frustrations people feel when they see reporters do that in real life.”

Sharon got to know the real Eastwood, as well as the reel Eastwood, during the three days he spent on the set. Like Dirty Harry, Eastwood has to deal constantly with his celebrity status and the crowds he draws.

“I was walking with him down the street,” Sharon said, “and it was really late at night. Somebody came up and tried to take a flash picture right in his face. He just calmly asked the guy if he would mind not taking the photograph and explained why. I thought, ‘Gee what a classy guy.’ ”

The current screenwriters’ strike has put Sharon’s film projects on hold. He would like the opportunity to work with Eastwood again, and maybe someday try out the director’s chair.

“When you’ve reached a certain plateau, the most exciting time is actually the anticipation that something’s going to be happening to a project you’ve written,” Sharon said. “You start to fantasize about what it’s going to be like. Those daydreams are so strong, it’s fun. It’s like the anticipation of going up to the top of a hill on a roller coaster and wondering what the ride’s going to be like--how your life is going to change.

“A writer friend of mine sent me a letter saying, ‘Do you feel lucky, punk?’ Yes, I do feel lucky. There aren’t more than maybe a dozen or two writers that have had the opportunity to work with Clint. People come up to you and say, ‘Gee, I’ve always wanted to write a Dirty Harry movie.’ So you get to live out their fantasies. I’ve had a lot of success other writers may never have.

“To have a film made by one of the biggest stars and one of the top film makers in Hollywood is like a dream come true. You can daydream about it, but actually (to) see it done, to have that opportunity to work with them--that’s a thrill. That makes my day.”