By When it comes to blockbusters, David Koepp knows his stuff. The famed writer is one of the most successful in terms of box office with his movies taking in $2.3 billion domestically.
His writing and co-writing credits have included “Jurassic Park,” “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Death Becomes Her,” “War of the Worlds,” “The Shadow,” “Angels & Demons” and the two most recent “Indiana Jones” films.
His upcoming fare includes next Summer’s Garth Edwards-directed “Jurassic World: Rebirth” and Steven Spielberg’s upcoming return to sci-fi blockbusters which is rumored to be titled “The Dish”.
Speaking with The Discourse recently to talk about his work on Steven Soderbergh’s new supernatural thriller “Presence,” he discussed his return to the “Jurassic” franchise and says it aims to go back to the tone of the original “Jurassic Park”:
“That was a ball. I had such a nice time on it. I hope people like the movie because the series tended to change after three, and it felt like, ‘Okay, so let’s change our tone. Steven [Spielberg] and I were interested in a tone that was maybe more akin to the very first movie. I saw it early on as a mission movie. I like things that are driven by bottles, by containment, you know?
And so, developing a limited team and a thing that they have to accomplish – that was all really fun. And it was just fun to return to that world of great adventure backed by real science and write some cool new characters. You don’t often get a chance to have a blank slate and say, ‘What do you want to do?’ There were no franchise expectations other than dinosaurs.”
As it was such a blank slate, Koepp created a list of rules the franchise needs to abide by moving forward – a list he said was inspired by an iconic cartoon:
“I actually wrote a list of our nine commandments, which was inspired by Chuck Jones, who had written nine commandments for the Roadrunner cartoons – like all adventures must take place in the American Southwest, gravity is always the coyote’s worst enemy, all products must come from the Acme corporation. So I made a list of things that we had to abide by – one was the events of the previous six movies that cannot be contradicted or denied because I don’t like a retcon. Those are no fun. Two, Humor is oxygen. Science must be real. You know, all the things that we wanted our movie to be. And I just had a great fun doing it with Steven and then with Gareth [Edwards].”
Koepp also teased his reunion with Spielberg on “The Dish,” saying: “It is like a sci-fi… Well, I don’t know. I’m not supposed to say. But, yes, it is. It does harken back to maybe a different tone than [what he’s done lately]. Something he used to do that he hasn’t done for a little bit.”
“Jurassic World: Rebirth” opens next July while Spielberg’s next film hits May 2026.
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