David Koepp

His humor is mostly observational or visual, suitable for today's semi-literate audience. Here's his oeuvre. The Indy 4 screenplay is all his. Might as well learn to like him.

Death Becomes Her: "What if I get bored?"
Jurassic Park: "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear"
War of the Worlds: "These came from some place else." "What do you mean, like, Europe?"

Okay, so hopefully he got help with the jokes.

I don't know if it was his idea, but I enjoyed seeing Koepp eaten outside the video store in Lost World. He was credited simply as "Unlucky Bastard." Now, every Indy movie has one over-the-top fatality that makes you cringe (propeller, rock crusher, tank tread). Maybe Koepp will have the honor that would otherwise have gone to Pat Roach?

What's Your Favorite Koepp Film?

David Koepp has a damn nice resume and has cranked out some great work over the years. I think Spider-Man is his best stuff, with Carlito's Way coming in at a close second. Do you think Indy 4 will draw on any of Koepp's previous works?

I guess you mean as a writer eh.... sure some good work... Stir Of Echoes was 5 times the story that 6th Sense was...

But Toy Soliders??? Barf...
Snake Eyes? Urlp....
War Of The Worlds?????? Gah-speew!!!

I might be the only bloke in the world who dug Zathura....

I'm partial to the Jurassic Park movies, but Death Becmes Her is his most memorable and original. His stuff is like cotton candy... trying to quote his movies is a struggle.

I dont like alot of his work which makes me a little nervous, but I did enjoy the spiderman movie and Secret Window was ok.

As promised in this thread, I said I'd start a thread for us to discuss David Koepp's past work. First up: Panic Room

I chose Panic Room because: (i) it's recent, (ii) has suspense, (iii) it's an original Koepp creation (which is arguably the best way to measure the man's creativity vs. an adaptation), (iv) a member here already panned the film (which got me curious), and (v) an old man (Patric Bauchau of HBO's Carnivale fame) plays a small but somewhat critical role (I'm just kidding about the 'old guy' reference).

Anthony Lane's able summary from The New Yorker's Film File:

The title of the new David Fincher film refers to a secure stronghold that is built into the walls of a New York house. Think of it as a safe, in which you lock your loved ones as well as your money. It is in one such room that a divorced mother (Jodie Foster) and her daughter (Kristen Stewart) take refuge when three burglars (Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, and Jared Leto) break in at night. From here on it's a game of cat and mouse, with the cat swinging a sledgehammer and the mice trying to reach their cell phone. The result is not so much scary as endlessly worrying; the movie was designed, propitiously, to suck in all the insecurities that you can imagine, and a few that you can't. What lends the ordeal its bite is the playoff between Whitaker, with his sluggish menace, and the tight-lipped, fretting Foster. Are you sure you locked up before going out to the theatre?
— Anthony Lane

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Key word in the summary: 'propitiously'. From a writing standpoint I think the biggest sin in this film is that the Foster character is claustrophobic and the daughter's character is diabetic. Boy with a movie about a small, locked confined space, even a single cell organism knew where this film was headed.

O.K. I got my dig out. Koepp's strengths were indeed the interaction between the bad guys as noted in the Lane summary. The break-in scene was masterful (but Hat-tip to Fincher for his signature mood creation and the strong score). And there were a couple of good lines (Foster-to-daugther: "It's disgusting how much I love you.")

So is Koepp's Panic Room a 'thumbs-up' or 'thumbs-down' on what we can expect in Indy IV?

I agree with Siskel and Ebert's trademark - Two Thumbs Up!

I admire an experimental, affordable script that follows its own rules, but that doesn't make Panic Room any good. It should have been 20 minutes long. Koepp's dialogue alone in an empty house is frightening. The only interesting part was the end: was it all a paranoid dream? (Fincher shot other ambiguous endings, to The Game and Fight Club.)

The Indy 4 screenplay is all his.

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We don't know that. From what has been said, David Koepp tweaked Jeff Nathanson's screenplay - which was approved for filming.

david keopp is very workman like. He hasnt ever written a great script, nor a really bad one. Very middle of the road, very safe scripts by numbers kind of approach. Thats why I'm glad that its not all his, but nathansons too (and a bit of darabont maybe)

I bet the script is top notch.

Previous Indy films have a lot of visual gags. I bet they pretty much just make it up as they go along. But of course the the script must have "it" too. And I have confidence in all the writers involved.

My favorite Koepp line must be "God help us; we're in the hands of engineers" from Jurassic Park.

Here are a couple of scripts he wrote with John Kamps, Supercollider and Premium Rush which Koepp is directing also. I've read them both and they're great. My main frustration is his ability to get laughs on the page which somehow don't translate to the screen. Still you can see how he sold Indy 4 for $5M and these for $2M each on spec.

The story was already conceived by Lucas and Nathanson, so I get the feeling that most of the plot points were already in place before Koepp even sat down to write his script.

Koepp seemed to provide a wealth of witty lines and amusement - which are plenty in this film.

Koepp's first novel Cold Storage is like Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain, with stupid people instead of scientists.

Speaking of which, Andromeda Evolution released, by Daniel H. Wilson, whose Robopocalypse had a lot of input by Spielberg, and nearly filmed in 2013.

Both recommended!

My Favorite Koepp Film is Jurassic Park and War Of The Worlds!

As mentioned elsewhere, Koepp offers plenty of scripts to read on his website. I had no idea Supercollider was nearly made, twice. Hopefully his take on Indy 5 winds up there. And here's a nice long video interview from when You Should Have Left came out last year. He mentions Indy 5, his quote and others made it to the news page.

DARTH ZOIDBERG said:

My Favorite Koepp Film is Jurassic Park and War Of The Worlds!

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Those are two movies.

His second novel is Aurora. Like his script Trigger Effect there's no power and society breaks down, but this time instead of no explanation, about 5% is devoted to Crichton-esque explanation of the science (solar flare). To be adapted soon for Netflix.

Here and in his Inferno adaptation, Koepp sure likes the phrase "highest marks."

Cold Storage is in the can, due this year or next. A nice tribute to Spielberg from the shoot:

Moedred said:

His humor is mostly observational or visual, suitable for today's semi-literate audience. Here's his oeuvre. The Indy 4 screenplay is all his. Might as well learn to like him.
Jurassic Park: "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear"

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Did he for sure come up with that? If I didn't know any better, I'd guess it was something humorous in the moment that Spielberg played up.