The second, Renaissance, was a short horror film in which a sadistic sexual predator dominates and kills his victim every night, but revives her the next morning only to start the cycle all over again.

[6] Living among prostitutes, pimps, drug users and dealers, and homeless people; the setting gave Lawton a wide range of inspiration for his stories.

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death is a take-off of both Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola's feature Apocalypse Now.

[2] Shot in less than two weeks in Lawton's hometown of Riverside, the film starred his longtime friend, comedian Bill Maher,[9][10] Playboy Playmate Shannon Tweed[11] and horror actress Adrienne Barbeau.

[8] He changed the title to Pretty Woman,[20] and with over $400 million in worldwide box office,[7][21] the movie became the largest grossing live-action film in Disney history.

Directed by Garry Marshall,[7] with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts,[17][22] the film is a story about Vivian Ward, a prostitute who is hired by a wealthy businessman, Edward Lewis, to be his escort for one week while he is in town on business.

[30] The idea came when Lawton, who had served time in the United States Coast Guard Reserve, read that the Navy was retiring the USS Missouri (BB-63).

Seagal's character must face off against a psychopathic ex-CIA agent (Tommy Lee Jones), who leads a group of mercenaries on a takeover of the battleship on its final voyage, so he can steal its arsenal of nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles.

With Barry Primus, Lawton co-wrote Mistress,[16] a comedy starring Robert De Niro, Danny Aiello, Christopher Walken and Martin Landau.

[33] The film was put on hold, and Howard Stern included a five-page Fartman story in comics form in his 1995 book, Miss America, which was based on Lawton's script.

)[36] Lawton went on to write and direct The Hunted (1995), a thriller set in Japan starring Christopher Lambert, John Lone, and Joan Chen.

[citation needed] Lawton's next film project was the action thriller Chain Reaction, which starred Morgan Freeman, Keanu Reeves, and Rachel Weisz.

[46] In 2006,[47] Lawton co-wrote for Paramount Pictures a film based on the video game series DOA: Dead or Alive,[48] starring Eric Roberts, Jaime Pressly, and Devon Aoki.

[49] Lawton wrote and directed the 2008 film Jackson,[16][50] a comedy-drama-musical starring Barry Primus, Charlie Robinson, Steve Guttenberg, Debra Jo Rupp, and included performances by opera singers Ella Lee, Shawnette Sulker, Clamma Dale and others.