david koepp Tagged Articles at Cinematical

When was the last time you recall seeing an actual bicycle messenger? Unless you live in a densely populated, car-hating metropolis, chances are rather slim that you ever see someone on a bike with a package under their arm, ducking and diving all manner of obstacles before screeching to a halt in front of a skyscraper and racing inside to drop off said package just in the nick of time. Which is why it is simultaneously bizarre and fascinating to me that David Koepp would pick the high-stakes world of two-wheeled courier services as the frame for his next directorial project.

What's even more fascinating is the scale Premium Rush, which I am 99% positive is the name of a Capri Sun flavor I used to drink in the '90s, is set up to be. Sony is bankrolling the production, which Variety says they see as "a big-budget actioner, much like the films Koepp is known for penning, and will feature the kind of elaborate chases associated with a William Friedkin pic." The Friedkin emulation I can understand, as The French Connection still remains a benchmark chase film, but the big budget Koepp titles they're referencing include Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Steven Spielberg is going to need a bigger boat -- a much, much bigger boat. He's leaving this shore, sailing away to 17th century Jamaica for one last adventure with the late Michael Crichton. USA Today reports that DreamWorks has bought the rights to Crichton's posthumous novel, Pirate Latitudes, and has hired screenwriter David Koepp to develop it into a film. Spielberg is producing, but plans on directing, though nothing has been scheduled until the script is completed.

While it's a bittersweet reunion, it's one that's sheer luck and coincidence according to DreamWorks' co-chair and CEO Stacey Snider. "Anything that Michael wrote, Steven would be keenly interested to read. But without Michael knowing it, or even me knowing it, it turns out Steven always wanted to direct his own pirate film." Not surprisingly, Spielberg already is coolly confident in Pirate Latitudes. "Michael wrote a real page-turner that already seems suited for the big screen. Michael and I have had almost two decades of solid collaborations. Whenever I made a film from a Michael Crichton book or screenplay, I knew I was in good hands. Michael felt the same, and we like to think he still does."

Pirate Latitudes doesn't hit store shelves until November 24, so plot details are relatively scarce. But this isn't going to be a tale of undead pirates and squid-faced Davey Jones like Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean. Latitudes is a semi-historical tale of piracy that takes place in 1665. Its star is the dashing Captain Edward Hunter, who infiltrates the notorious Port Royal, and plans to raid a Spanish galleon loaded with treasure. Cue the cannons and swashbuckling, though it sounds as though Spielberg plans to load it up with lots of grimy, historical details.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Da Vinci Code.

I read about fifty pages of The Da Vinci Code before hurling it across the room. I sat through the stupid movie – the whole thing – and hated every miserable moment. It now faces some stiff competition from Twilight, but before this year I would have been hard-pressed to come up with a less interesting pop culture phenomenon. At least for a non-Christian like me, who has no reason to be stunned by the notion of Jesus Christ having procreated, The Da Vinci Code simply had nothing to offer.

I don't consider myself a masochist, but I don't mind being a guinea pig. So I thought doing Angels & Demons in this column would be fun, in a way.

It would have been great to be able to say that Angels & Demons was some sort of revelation (no pun intended); it certainly would have made this post easier to write. Alas, it ranks among the dumbest things I've ever read: an adventure book for fourth-graders, seemingly written by a sixth-grader. In an effort to make itself "accessible" to absolutely everyone, it makes its characters into nitwits – which is problematic since its characters are Harvard professors and world-class particle physicists. Dr. Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks in both films, has never heard of a particle accelerator – or maybe he has, and is just astounded to learn that it's an enormous underground structure. Antimatter is a new concept as well. At one point, the novel helpfully explains who Galileo was. You get the idea.

Last December, Cinematical was the only movie blog invited to visit the set of Ghost Town over at the beautiful Steiner Studios in Brooklyn, New York. Directed by David Koepp, Ghost Town stars Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Téa Leoni, Billy Campbell and Kristen Wiig, and it arrives in theaters on September 19. Check out our report below ...

I always get nervous whenever visiting a film set. In the past, I've been a part of a larger group, which meant I could simply follow behind three other people and hopefully fade into the pack. I never want to stand out. I never want be the guy who's standing in the wrong place, on the wrong wire, or the guy who accidentally coughs during a three-minute period where everyone is silent. Sometimes a film set can be an intimidating place to visit if you're not working there, slaving away for hours upon hours -- there's a sort of team mentality and closeness that's shared amongst the crew that you're not a part of. You're the outsider, the blogger -- the guy who's there to criticize and report back on a project that's not yet complete. In some cases, you're the enemy.

But when you're part of the pack, it's easier to digest the experience. It's easier to not be that guy. However, when I showed up to the set of Ghost Town on a very cold day in December, I suddenly realized I was the only web outlet invited ... and knowing I'd be all by myself on this one, my Neurotic Jew Meter (Thanks Mom!) went through the roof.

Cinematical was lucky enough to visit the set of Ghost Town earlier today, where we spoke exclusively with writer-director David Koepp about this new film, as well as how it was writing what will probably go down as the biggest film of 2008: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We'll have a full set report on Ghost Town a little down the line as its late summer (tentative) release date approaches, but in the meantime, we wanted to find out a couple things from Koepp (who was the nicest guy, by the way) on Indy 4. Primarily, has he seen any of the finished product yet? Says Koepp, "Well I saw Indy's death scene, which was very moving. Um, I probably shouldn't have said that." We both laugh, since Koepp was obviously joking. He was joking, right? "I saw little bits here and there, and at first I felt a lot of pressure [writing the script] because you don't want to be the one who screws up a beloved franchise. But there's nothing you can do except work extra hard -- so I worked extra hard. You can't approach it except as you would any other movie."

One of the things that's been talked about for some time now is whether Frank Darabont's old Indiana Jones 4 script was used while Koepp was writing the new script. Darabont's been pretty outspoken about the whole thing recently, admitting that he hasn't seen the final product, but has heard that elements of his script were used. We asked Koepp about this -- whether he used Darabont's script as a reference -- and he had this to say: "I looked at everything that everyone had written. It's been in development since the early '90s; anything that was any good, I tried to use -- sometimes it stayed, sometimes it didn't. We're all assistant storytellers; there was a ton of material there already. Part of my job was shaper, and part of my job was coming up with new stuff."

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull arrives in theaters on May 22, 2008.

Okay... Before I get to the wonder that is Bruce Campbell, I've got to take a second and complain. If you remember anything about our previous coverage of Ghost Town, such as David Koepp signing on to direct Greg Kinnear and Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni signing on, and then Kristen Wiig, you probably remember the premise. A dentist (Gervais) heads in for a colonoscopy under the knife of Wiig, and he dies for seven minutes. When he comes back to life, he can see the dead -- especially a ghostly businessman (Kinnear) who wants him to break up his widow's (Leoni) upcoming marriage.

Anal surgery is no longer the culprit. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the dentist temporarily kicks the bucket during a "routine dental surgery." Now that is a really boring and lame change. What's wrong with a colonoscopy? Gah. At least we've got Campbell to soften the news. He has signed on to play Leoni's character's fiance -- the one that the dentist really isn't into. Since this ghostly apparition isn't through Whoopi, I keep wondering if it'll end up with Kinnear taking over Gervais' body to have a second chance with his wife. Or maybe Campbell will go Ash on his ass and take him out of the picture. He could always just say Deadites possessed the dude. Shooting has already begun in New York, and hopefully they haven't vanilla-ed anything else.

Post edited as the original THR post now says "Billy Campbell" is the other man, and not Bruce. Thanks to ***Lance*** for spotting that. What a shame.

Did you know that if you die during a colonoscopy and are brought back, that you are able to communicate with the dead? No, no, it's not true, but it is the premise for Ghost Town starring Tea Leoni and Ricky Gervais. I'm not sure if anyone has ever died due to complications during a colonoscopy -- the synopsis on paper just made me laugh -- but I think that if anyone can pull it off, its Ricky Gervais (The Office, the BBC version.) Gervais is the unlucky patient in the film, and once he regains his life he is presented with a unique predicament -- he's haunted by the ghost of a businessman played by Greg Kinnear -- now I'm not sure if the cast can get any better. Gervais has some kind of tasks that he must fulfill -- he's kind of like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, apparently. The character played by Kinnear uses Gervais as a vehicle to stop the marriage of his still living wife, Leoni.

David Koepp wrote Ghost Town and is set to also direct the film. Koepp has a thing for dark spiritualism, having brought us Secret Window (the one where Johnny Depp plays an author stalked by a psychopath accusing him of plagiarism), War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise, underground aliens and lots of red veiny stuff) among other projects. We'll have to wait until at least 2008 to catch Leoni's ruined marriage plans, Gervais' near death experience and Kinnear's ability to control the living, since Ghost Town doesn't start filming until October of this year.

Though David Koepp is known more for his scripts (War of the Worlds, Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible) than his directorial efforts (Secret Window, Stir of Echoes), it's my belief that he'd eventually like to become a one-man army -- writing and directing blockbuster after blockbuster. I mean, why be Steven Spielberg's right-hand man when you can compete alongside him with your own epic big-screen adventure? In order to do so, however, he'll have to prove he has what it takes to deliver a ginormous high-concept comedy first. The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Dreamworks has tapped Koepp to direct his first big-screen comedic effort, Ghost Town, off a script he co-wrote with John Kamps.

Not only that, but Greg Kinnear and Ricky Gervais have signed on to star. Labeled a romantic comedy, story revolves around a dentist who, after some sort of near-death experience, becomes equipped with the ability to communicate with dead people who then decide to ask the dentist to help them contact the living. No word yet on who will play who (or if Patrick Swayze will make a cameo appearance), but I suspect Kinnear will portray the dentist while Gervais might be one of the bothersome dead folks. Back in 2005, Dreamworks reportedly paid $2 million for Ghost Town, which was only a pitch at the time. Was it worth the money? Only time will tell; pic is currently eyeing an October start date.

It looks like Sony is more serious than we thought about pressing ahead with their mega-bucks Spiderman franchise, whether Tobey, Kirsten, or Sam decide to return or not. Variety is reporting this morning that after seeing the first cut of Spiderman 3, Columbia execs have immediately conducted a sit-down with scribe David Koepp about penning the next installment. If Koepp, who is also in the news lately for having turned in an accepted draft for the next installment in the Indiana Jones series, does sign on to the project, he will presumably replace Alvin Sargent, who wrote Spiderman 2 and Spiderman 3. Koepp of course, was the man responsible for writing the first Spiderman, way back in 2002, as well as other giant-budget pieces like War of the Worlds, Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible. Variety also reports that Columbia would plan on dropping the film in theaters sometime in 2009 or 2010.

The piece also notes the obvious -- that bringing together the entire team for another round of Spidey might be outrageously expensive. Dunst has publicly gone on record as being less than over-the-moon about doing more Spiderman films, and similar noise has come from the camps of some of the other major players. Columbia might just decide that this is the time for a fresh start.

Was anyone else a little weirded out watching George Lucas at the beginning of yesterday's Rose Bowl? My little sister's boyfriend turned to me and said, "Wait, is that George Lucas? What the hell is he doing there?" Something tells me a lot of people said the same exact thing during the coin toss (although most probably did not know he was this year's Grand Marshal). All that aside, the trade's officially confirmed today that what we've been hearing about Indiana Jones 4 is indeed true -- yes, the project is a go and production will kick off this June.

After much consideration and fine-tuning of the script, Steven Spielberg has chosen Indy 4 as his next directorial assignment, and a 64 year-old Harrison Ford will reprise the role of Indiana Jones for a fourth (and final?) time. Says Spielberg, "George, Harrison and I are all very excited. We feel that the script was well worth the wait. We hope it delivers everything you'd expect from our history with Indiana Jones." Okay, I'll tell you what we expect Steve -- we expect you to not let Lucas ruin this thing with tons of fancy, digital special effects. We expect you to give us a fourth installment that remains true to the look and feel of the other three, regardless of when they were shot and what was available at the time.

Currently there's no title, casting or plot information, but based on what's been said before, there's a good chance Sean Connery will make an appearance and the story will have some sort of supernatural theme. Spielberg, Lucas and friends will be working off David Koepp's version of the script and shooting will take place within the U.S. as well as around the world. Though an official release date was not announced, all signs point toward May 2008, which means Indy 4 will be going up against Iron Man, Prince Caspian and the Wachowski Brothers' Speed Racer. Sweet!

So, you stoked or what?