When it comes to the 2026 movie release schedule, we might not see a better alien movie after Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, but there’s something somewhat ironic I noticed while watching the alien-centric tale. In the entire 145-minute runtime, the word “alien” itself is never uttered by a single character. So, I had to ask the screenwriter about it.

During CinemaBlend’s interview with David Koepp, he confirmed with me that my observation about the word alien in Disclosure Day was very astute, and responded with:

I thought I might be on to something! Disclosure Day takes place in the modern-day United States in a very grounded context, and it sounds like the screenwriter wanted it to feel like the movie itself was taking the implications of life outside of Earth earnestly, and one reason they felt like they could was by not using the word “alien.”

Then, there’s the fact that the word “alien” has become a politically controversial word in the past few decades in references to U.S. immigrants. It makes sense why Koepp and Steven Spielberg might have wanted to distance themselves from the politics of the word “alien” and instead use other words to describe life beyond the species on our planet. I know, I definitely felt that it grounded the film.

Disclosure Day came from an idea Steven Spielberg had when following what was happening in 2023 around whistleblower David Grusch, who advocated for government transparency on UFOs after his experience as an intelligence officer for the U.S. Air Force. Grusch also deliberately chose not to use the word “alien” (or even “extraterrestrial”) when talking about his own claims in order to frame things away from sounding so science fiction.

Before Spielberg knew it, he had a 52-page treatment, whom he decided to send over to the screenwriter behind Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Koepp told us he was blown away by Spielberg’s ideas, and immediately thought it would work because the Disclosure Day ending already did straight away. Spielberg and Koepp’s collaboration ended up being an intense one that took 42 drafts to get right before production got started with the likes of Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth and Colman Domingo.

But it sounds like it’s worth it, given the high praise the movie has received before debuting at No. 1 at the box office a couple of weeks ago. It definitely feels like a carefully written script and the "alien" detail does make a difference. You can check out Disclosure Day for yourself in theaters now!

Disclosure Day’s box office debut last weekend started Steven Spielberg's latest on a winning note, but it has since become one of the more polarizing releases to be on the 2026 movie schedule. It feels like those who went to see it either were getting chills over its third act or asking themselves if anything actually happened in the movie. While I fall in the camp of someone who really enjoyed it, I want to talk about why it made me think about Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull lately.

The 2008 sequel is famously criticized for not being as good as the other movies in the franchise, but honestly, I don’t think it’s as bad as everyone thinks it is – it’s just not as great as the original trilogy. Anyways, the ending of Disclosure Day particularly has me thinking about Indiana Jones 4. Let’s get into it.

Remember The Alien Scene In Indiana Jones 4?

While Spielberg, Harrison Ford and screenwriter David Koepp reportedly were never fully on board with aliens being in the movie, Indiana Jones 4 very much has them like Disclosure Day. Aside from them both being directed by Spielberg from a script by Koepp, and involving aliens, there's more to it.

At their bare bones, the two films revolve around a piece of alien evidence that one group has and another group very much would like to have instead. In Indiana Jones 4, it’s Indy vs. the Soviets led by a particularly goofy Cate Blanchett performance. But what you may not remember is that the Crystal Skull involves a telepathic element that leads the humans of the story to connect with the aliens in the story. Sounding familiar yet?

Ultimately, both groups end up at a temple where they return the Crystal Skull to a skeleton inside, triggering aliens from another dimension to appear. The extraterrestrial ends up transferring way too much knowledge to Blanchett’s Soviet agent character, effectively overloading her brain and killing her. Indy and his crew quickly escape the temple, and a flying saucer rises from the ruins and returns to the otherworldly place they came from.

Disclosure Day's Finale Reminds Me Of It, But Better

This brings me to Disclosure Day. Both movies play with the idea of aliens, but whereas Indiana Jones 4 does so with a more basic “good vs. evil” plotline about tech from another world potentially falling into the wrong hands, Spielberg's new movie is weighing something else. What if our present-day world had definite proof of the existence of aliens and the world got to discover it together? Both movies only really take us to the discovery stage of extraterrestrial life, and stop there. But where I felt empty with Indiana Jones, I felt fed with Disclosure Day.

There's an added thought-provoking element that had me imagining how our world would change should everyone at the same time get the kind of moment usually only reserved for larger-than-life heroes like Indiana Jones. It had me thinking about humanity and the ways in which we have the great power to both come together and tear things apart. I didn’t need more from Disclosure Day, because it gave me enough to ponder about ourselves, whereas I feel like in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I would have been a lot more satisfied if Indy got to talk to an alien for a bit, ya know?

Ultimately, it feels like the same filmmakers unintentionally played with a very similar concept, just 18 years apart, and found a way to ultimately explore it better through Disclosure Day. As someone who liked Spielberg's latest movie, I'm more grateful for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull now that I've made these connections.

Disclosure Day is one of the 2026 movie releases that I’ve had my eye on ever since I learned it was Steven Spielberg’s first alien movie in 20 years. Did you know that the script also took a wild amount of drafts to get right? I was so curious about this fun fact, and the screenwriter told me about one character that probably held up filming the most.

How The Lengthy Disclosure Day Script Process Started

Steven Spielberg started jotting his ideas for Disclosure Day down in the summer of 2023 on the Notes app of his iPad. The story that allows him to continue to explore his lifelong fascination with extraterrestrials quickly turned into a 52-page treatment that he then sent to David Koepp, whom he’s worked with before on Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In CinemaBlend’s interview with Koepp, the screenwriter recalled his first thoughts to the email with these words:

While many of Spielberg’s films have come from his own story ideas before becoming some of the best sci-fi movies ever made, he’s only personally written the scripts for a handful of movies over the years: Firelight, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Poltergeist, A.I. Artificial Intelligence and The Fabelmans. Here’s how Koepp became Disclosure Day’s screenwriter, per our chat:

When describing his collaboration with Spielberg, which have led to these iconic lightning-in-a-bottle movies before, David Koepp told me the filmmaker is “demanding”, but always “encouraging.” And in the instance of this particular collaboration, it took 42 drafts to get the script right before the movie was shot. But why?

What Caused The Most Back And Forth

It turns out there was a particular character in Disclosure Day that Koepp and Spielberg just couldn’t stop fine-tuning throughout the writing process. As Koepp shared:

I think this answer makes so much sense, because her character is one of the strongest parts of the film. That's not only from my perspective – it has been called out a bunch in Disclosure Day reviews. Blunt is the MVP of the film, but part of that needed to come through in the written final draft.

I also have to wonder if knowing people would perk up like I did over a new sci-fi movie from Spielberg meant they didn’t want to disappoint fans of with a subpar followup? He has a reputation to uphold! But 42 drafts? I mean, wow, that's a lot of tries to get Blunt's character just so.

You can decide for yourself how Disclosure Day stacks up to your favorite sci-fi movies by catching it in theaters now.

Major spoilers for Disclosure Day lie ahead!

What would happen if there was definitive proof of the existence of alien life from the government and it could be shown to the world? That’s the topic at the heart of Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day. This recent 2026 movie release offers action, thrills, humor and heart as one would expect from a Spielberg film. However, it's also incredibly thoughtful and that vibe persists up through the final frame. With that, CinemaBlend recently spoke to screenwriter David Koepp about the final word that's uttered in the film.

During CinemaBlend's chat with Disclosure Day screenwriter David Koepp, who also previously wrote other famous movies like Jurassic Park, Spider-Man and Mission: Impossible, I had to ask him about the movies's last word: “Listen,” which is uttered by Emily Blunt's Margaret Fairchild. Koepp provided a thoughtful answer:

During the spine-chilling ending of Disclosure Day, Margaret and Josh O’Connor’s Daniel Kellner are able to make it to the KCTV station to make the film's titular event happen after a couple of hours of nail-biting thrills. Margaret gets to anchor for the first time to break the news, while Daniel leaks the life-threatening bag of government files he's been risking his life for.

After humankind witnesses a montage of jaw-dropping footage of evidence that the government has been recording extraterrestrial life from across history, one of these aliens appears in the newsroom as well to deliver a message through Margaret. We never hear the message itself as the movie ends on the word: “Listen”.

While some might see the credits unfold and say “That’s it?”, as Koepp shared, we don't need to as the word itself encapsulates the entire message of the movie. Disclosure Day is about showing empathy for others, and the biggest rule of grasping the feelings of others is to in fact listen to them. As the screenwriter continued:

Koepp was also inspired by the sci-fi masterpiece, Slaughterhouse Five, specifically at the start of Chapter 2. The novel from Kurt Vonnegut also features aliens called the Tralfamadorians, who experience all of time simultaneously. So it’s both a nod to one of the great classics of the genre and a clever way to deliver the message of the movie.

While he could have certainly thought up some message from the aliens, I appreciate David Koepp explaining the reasoning for the conclusion. The critically-acclaimed Disclosure Day certainly gets me thinking about how the world would really react if the moment indisputable evidence of alien life was shown to the world really happened. At the same time, it explores how human empathy and connection is one of our greatest strengths as a species, and the final word underlines that point beautifully.

For the first time in almost 25 years, Steven Spielberg is one of the people behind an upcoming sci-fi movie that is wholly original, thanks to his new movie Disclosure Day. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t find some connections between the new film and his legendary contributions to the genre. And when CinemaBlend spoke to Disclosure Day’s screenwriter David Koepp, he name-dropped one beloved film of Spielberg's that is linked to the new movie.

Koepp and Spielberg are longtime collaborators who’ve worked together before on Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Since I’d heard him call Disclosure Day a "spiritual sequel” to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I had to know what he meant by that. In Koepp’s words:

Close Encounters was released back in 1977 and served as the filmmaker’s first of a handful of alien movies he made, even predating E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. As Koepp shared in our interview, there are no characters or plotlines that connect it to Disclosure Day, but they very much could be thought of in the same breath due to their themes. As he continued:

While it’s somehow been almost a half of a century between Steven Spielberg’s first alien movie and Disclosure Day, Koepp thinks they both speak to how the public has perceived the potential of extraterrestrial life in association with the government’s knowledge about it. While Close Encounters explored the wonder and excitement involved in someone finding out about the existence of alien life, Disclosure Day starts with the idea of alien life being a truth already within the world, it just has yet to be officially released to the public.

Disclosure Day came out of an original story Spielberg thought up and started coming up with a concept for. He ended up writing a 38-page email detailing his plans for the storyline to David Koepp, which he then asked the screenwriter to work with him on. Koepp told us he thought to himself, “Holy smokes!” while reading the idea for the first time and thought it “worked so well.”

So far, Disclosure Day is receiving a lot of positive reactions that have called it a “towering home run,” “truly something special,” and “just great.” It has a fantastic Rotten Tomatoes score of 87% after a slew of complementary reviews went online. The science fiction movie is the biggest of the 2026 movie releases to come to theaters this weekend. You can see it for yourself on June 12.

Steven Spielberg's latest feature film, Disclosure Day, is stirring up buzz ahead of its release on the 2026 movie schedule. For starters, the film marks Spielberg’s first directorial effort since 2022’s The Fabelmans, and it also marks his return to the science-fiction genre. There have also been a few conspiracy theories surrounding this latest Spielberg-helmed UFO tale as well. I’ve known about that chatter for a little while now, but I didn’t know about one piece of government-related gossip. And, now, the film’s writer is sharing his take on that claim.

Disclosure Day tells the story of a young man seeking to divulge major information that could change the world. While many of the finer story details are being kept under lock and key, it’s clear there’s an extraterrestrial force at play in the movie. For that reason, some people apparently believe Spielberg is releasing this film to help the government prepare the masses to make first contact with aliens. Screenwriter David Koepp is aware, and he shared a great take on it with SFX Magazine on CinemaBlend:

The mere thought of one of cinema’s most iconic directors working alongside Uncle Sam is funny, and I’m really chuckling over the supposed notion that the upcoming sci-fi movie includes real alien footage. However, I guess if any filmmaker would be sought out by the U.S. government to prepare citizens for otherworldly beings it would be Spielberg. His experience with UFO movies and his ability to make complex, yet widely accessible movies, would make him the perfect candidate.

Of course, the E.T. helmer has also had a decades-long fascination with aliens, but prospective viewers shouldn’t put too much stock in the assertion that Disclosure Day is some kind of propaganda piece. Koepp – who has written five of Spielberg’s films – also wants people to know the Men in Black haven’t come knocking at his door. However, the witty scribe also had an A+ thought on whether he might’ve had such an encounter:

Even though Spielberg’s latest film isn’t a co-production with that government, that doesn’t mean fans shouldn’t take notice. The Disclosure Day trailers tease a story filled with sci-fi-related intrigue, and it has a stacked cast consisting of Josh O’Connor, Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo and Wyatt Russell. Koepp also promises that the movie will differ from the other UFO-based tales that Spielberg has told thus far, which is exciting.

So, everyone, take off those tinfoil hats and get ready to see Disclosure Day when it opens in theaters nationwide on June 12, 2026. I trust that Steven Spielberg will indeed tell yet another compelling sci-fi tale and, the good news is, we won’t need to be neuralized after we watch it.

This summer, fans are being graced with a new movie from the great Steven Spielberg and, with it, the filmmaker is returning to a genre he’s very familiar with. Spielberg’s feature film, Disclosure Day, is a science-fiction film that centers around a conspiracy that seemingly involves a UFO. Given that premise, many have already been comparing this 2026 movie schedule entry to some of Spielberg’s past films, which have dealt with similar subject matter. Now, the film’s writer is responding to that assumption, and I love his take.

Spielberg has obviously dipped his toes into stories revolving around humanity making contact with beings from other planets. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and War of the Worlds represent other instances in which the Oscar winner has depicted such events. David Koepp penned the script for this latest film, and he’s heard the comparisons that have been tossed around. While speaking to SFX Magazine on CinemaBlend, Koepp weighed in on how DD relates to its predecessors thematically:

Koepp – who’s been collaborating off and on with Spielberg since 1993’s Jurassic Park – makes points that I really agree with. First and foremost, the Jaws helmer isn’t one to repeat himself, so any concerns about him possibly rehashing any themes for his latest movie feel unwarranted. To that point, Spielberg’s previous UFO flicks are all different from each other as well. I mean, the intensity of WOTW is far different from the sweetness of the suburban-coded ET or the cosmic yearning present in Close Encounters.

On that note, many are probably still wondering what to expect from the plot of Steven Spielberg’s latest movie. Well, the Disclosure Day trailer doesn’t give too much away, but at the core of it seems to be one Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), who seeks to reveal a massive secret to the world. As for what shaped Koepp’s approach to writing the screenplay based on Spielberg’s “40 or 50-page” treatment, he cited an iconic director:

Pakula is known for producing dramas and thriller films like All the President’s Men and The Parallax View, so I’d say David Koepp’s source of inspiration is quite solid. Quite frankly, I just can’t wait to see how Steven Spielberg’s continued fascination with aliens manifests through this latest cinematic endeavor. Admittedly, I can imagine his new movie has slight similarities to his other UFO movies but, based on Koepp’s comments, viewers are in for something wholly original.

Check out Disclosure Day, which opens in theaters on June 12. While you wait for the film, do yourself a favor and revisit some of Steven Spielberg’s greatest movies, whether they’re alien-related or not.

Minor spoilers ahead for Jurassic World Rebirth.

Jurassic Park is one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, and the franchise has remained a vital part of pop culture for decades. The property, which is streaming with a Peacock subscription, has once again returned to theaters with the new blockbuster Jurassic World Rebirth. And it turns out that one draft of that movie featured full-blown dinosaur sex. Let's break it all down.

It remains to be seen where fans put Rebirth when ranking the Jurassic movies, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Around halfway through the movie, the group of heroes see a group of Titanosaurus who are coupled up. It's a sweet sequence, but it could have been much more steamy. In a conversation with IndieWire, writer David Koepp spoke about the challenge of bringing this scene together, in his words:

Not Jurassic PORK! I'm scared to google this term, as I have to assume there's a porn parody somewhere on the internet. And it sounds like we could have seen the Titanosaurus getting busy in the original draft of this new sequel.

While CinemaBlend's Jurassic World Rebirth review wasn't overwhelmingly positive, perhaps audiences will be more kind. Later in the same interview, Koepp shared more about just how graphic the OG script was for this sequence, saying:

Well... that would have been a very different movie. While we've seen lots of murderous dinosaurs and a giant pile of dung in the Jurassic franchise, seeing two Dinos mating has never been part of the story. After all, they were originally designed to be unable to reproduce on their own.

Since Rebirth's original cut was less than two hours long, a number of scenes likely ended up on the cutting room floor. That includes seeing two giant dinosaurs knocking boots for the first time. David Koepp reflected on turning in that sequence, saying:

There are likely some audience members who would have laughed at seeing the Titanosaurus procreate. The Jurassic franchise is known for pivoting between horror and comedy, but usually it doesn't work blue. In the end, these jokes were cut from Rebirth, but maybe we'll get more adult content if/when the property continues with another big-screen adventure.

If Rebirth does well in theaters, I have to assume that Universal Pictures will want to continue the story with a sequel. The cast is certainly winning, especially the internet's boyfriend, Jonathan Bailey, and the great Scarlett Johansson.

Jurassic World Rebirth is in theaters now as part of the 2025 movie release list. Unfortunately, the Titanosaurus is much more tame than it could have been.

If you're a fan of the original Jurassic Park trilogy and have felt underwhelmed by the recent dinosaur flicks, the upcoming Jurassic World Rebirth might be the revival you’ve been waiting for. With a fresh cast, new creative direction, and a heavy dose of Spielberg nostalgia, the 2025 movie schedule release is meant to suggest one big thing: this isn’t just another sequel. It’s a return to form. With that, cast members Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey are among those hyping the flick, and I'm getting excited!

Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey, along with screenwriter David Koepp, offered exciting insights while speaking with Empire Magazine. The group conveyed how Rebirth is intentionally echoing the tone, style and thrills of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 classic. Johansson told the outlet:

Scarlett Johansson has openly shared her deep childhood obsession with Jurassic Park, giving her opinion considerable weight. Her description of the series reflects the grounded, suspense-filled storytelling that fans like me have been longing for since the original raptor-and-jeep days.

Bailey, best known for Bridgerton and quickly becoming one of Hollywood’s go-to leading men, echoed her sentiments. According to him:

And that’s no accident. From the jungle-drenched setting to a more restrained use of CGI, Rebirth seems almost meticulously scientifically engineered to tap into the awe and fear that defined the first installments.

That back-to-nature approach isn’t accidental. David Koepp, who penned both Jurassic Park and The Lost World, is back on scripting duties. Since he was announced to be returning, Koepp has been clear about the film’s mission, and he really emphasized it during this latest interview:

That shift in setting and tone has me, a hardcore fan, buzzing!. The last few entries in the franchise leaned heavily into action movie spectacle, sometimes at the expense of the slow-burn suspense that made Spielberg’s original installment (which is one of the best '90s movies) so unforgettable. By taking the story back to a remote, dinosaur-dominated island, Rebirth isn’t just pushing reset, it’s digging back into the DNA of what made this franchise great in the first place.

In short, this marks a distinct tonal shift. Gone are the urban chase sequences and sci-fi mega-facilities. In their place? Thick jungle, looming suspense, and a return to the primal fear of being prey. If you’ve been longing for the sense of scale and danger that defined Spielberg’s original, the next installment is shaping up to deliver the goods.

Want more proof this reboot is rooted in reverence? This isn’t the first time Koepp has compared Jurassic World Rebirth to Spielberg’s OG flick, doubling down on the idea that this isn’t just a new chapter, it’s a spiritual sequel.

Jurassic World Rebirth stomps into cinemas on July 2. If the buzz is right, we’re finally getting the follow-up fans have been waiting for, one that knows exactly where it came from and why that matters. In the meantime, you can rent or buy the original three Jurassic Park films as well as the World trilogy on Prime Video.

The Jurassic Park universe has always been synonymous with cinematic spectacle, transporting audiences to a world where dinosaurs once again roam the Earth. Now, the upcoming Jurassic World Rebirth is set to hit the 2025 movie schedule coming, and a familiar creative voice is stepping back into the fold. The film’s writer, returning series legacy talent David Koepp, recently opened up about rejoining the franchise. He not only shared his excitement for this new chapter but also teased a moment hardcore fans, of which I am one, will love.

During a recent interview with Variety, David Koepp, who penned the scripts for the first two Jurassic Park films, shared that the idea for Rebirth started with a conversation with collaborator Steven Spielberg. Koepp explained to the trade just how the casual brainstorming session between the two soon turned into a full-fledged project:

Though the pressure of revisiting a beloved franchise is undeniable—“it’s going to cost a lot of money, and there are going to be big expectations,” Koepp admitted—the initial development process was free of constraints, focused purely on creativity.

What will surely have fans buzzing, however, is David Koepp's confirmation that Rebirth will have a very specific (and cool) link to Michael Crichton’s first Jurassic Park novel. The Stir of Echoes penner added while talking about how he prepared to craft this story:

While David Koepp didn’t reveal which scene from Michael Crichton’s original novel will finally roar to life on screen, fans of the books know there’s no shortage of thrilling moments that never made the cut in the OG flicks. For my money, one of the most iconic sequences that deserves its time in the cinematic spotlight is the river raft scene with Alan Grant and the kids.

In this nail-biting chapter, the trio navigates downriver in a small raft, desperately trying to evade the relentless dinos and make their way to safety. The tension ramps up when they spot the T. rex lurking on the riverbank, stalking them. When you think they’re in the clear, the beast plunges into the river and begins swimming after them, adding a new layer of primal terror.

Now, it’s unlikely Alan, Lex, or Tim will be making a return for the sequel to one of the best sci-fi movies—besides, they’re more than 30 years older now and the scene wouldn't quite deliver the same kind of punch. But I could see this scene reimagined for the new film, with fresh characters taking on the perilous journey. It’d be a sequence that would combine everything fans love about Jurassic Park: heart-stopping action, edge-of-your-seat tension, and the ever-present reminder that humans are way out of their depth in the dinosaur kingdom. Here’s hoping this long-lost moment finally makes the leap from page to screen.

Jurassic: World Rebirth is scheduled for release on July 2, 2025. If you want to revisit the original trilogy of films, all three movies are currently available to stream on Starz.

Dinosaurs have been gone from the earth for 65 million years but it seems dinosaurs won’t be leaving our movie screens for any significant length of time. The Jurassic Park franchise has given us six movies already and a seventh is already underway. While what we know about Jurassic World: Rebirth is fairly limited at the moment, beyond some teases from director Gareth Edwards, the screenwriter is teasing some things that should have fans of the first movie very excited.

The original Jurassic Park was a groundbreaking movie for its use of CGI effects to create realistic-looking dinosaurs. Every movie since has largely been trying to recapture the magic of the first film, and screenwriter of Rebirth, David Koepp says he was specifically given instructions by producer Steven Spielberg to try and recapture the tone of the original franchise in the new film. He told The Discourse Podcast…

The new film, while it will follow chronologically from the events of the previous trilogy, will be an entirely new story with new characters. It doesn't appear previous actors from the Jurassic World or Jurassic Park movies will appear. A story needs a fresh start.

We know that the plot of Jurassic World: Rebirth will see Scarlett Johansson lead a team to an island in order to obtain material from dinosaurs that may be usable in human medicine. One can see how the tone of the new movie may closely match the original since the story of both sees humans stuck on an island with dangerous dinosaurs.

Certainly, many ways in which the new Jurassic World is like the original Jurassic Park are likely to be a good thing. While all the movies in the newest trilogy were box office behemoths, it’s difficult to argue that any of the sequels have been as good as Steven Spielberg’s original.

All of the Jurassic Park movies have been, at the very least, fun, even if they haven’t all become classic cinema. It’s difficult to imagine how a new film could truly match the groundbreaking original. The first Jurassic Park’s CGI holds up today, in ways that more modern CGI often does not, which unfortunately means that no follow-up can really outdo it in that regard. The best it can accomplish is to be just as good.

If there’s one way the new movie may be able to match, or even exceed the original it’s in the fact that the Jurassic World: Rebirth cast is stacked. From Scarlett Johansson to Mahershala Ali to Jonathan Bailey, whose stock is going up as we speak thanks to Wicked, the new movie won’t be lacking talent. If it can also make us feel like we’re watching the original Jurassic Park for the first time, we could have something special on the way.

Hold onto your butts, Jurassic Park fans! One of the best ‘90s sci-fi movie franchises is about to get a massive dose of star power. During a press junket for her latest film, Fly Me to the Moon, Scarlett Johansson confirmed the long-rumored news that she's joining the next installment of the series. But that's not all. The Black Widow star spoke about the exciting connection that the movie has to the original series, which is script for the newest installment was written by the original screenwriter. That’s right, the franchise is bringing back legacy talent, and fans are surely in for a brontosaurus-sized treat!

Universal Pictures rebranded the iconic Jurassic Park franchise as Jurassic World, continuing the original storyline with a fresh perspective. That 2015 film's box office triumph led to a new trilogy, but each sequel saw a decline in box office earnings. Now, the studio is gearing up for a new series of movies. In an exclusive conversation with ComicBook.com, Johansson couldn’t contain her enthusiasm about joining the iconic franchise, saying:

The upcoming sequel, tentatively titled Jurassic World 4, boasts a screenplay by David Koepp, the brilliant mind behind one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, the ‘93 original. This marks Koepp's return to the franchise for the first time since 1997's The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Unlike his previous collaborations, this will be his first flick in the franchise where the script will not be directed by Steven Spielberg. Instead, Gareth Edwards, known for his work on Godzilla and The Creator, dropped everything to take the director's chair. Johansson continued: 

Scarlett Johansson's entry into the Park/World franchise has been a long time coming as rumors of the Avengers star's casting have persisted for some time. She recently revealed that she has been eager to join the dino-filled adventure since the franchise's revival in the 2010s. The Ghost World actress added: 

While there's no official word yet on whether Chris Pratt or other Jurassic World series actors will return for the fourth movie, Pratt has teased fans with a tantalizing "never say never." So, it's entirely possible we might see these former MCU stars reunite for some dino-filled action.

In the meantime, let's all take a moment to celebrate the fact that the script is penned by the writer of the first two original films. Just knowing that David Koepp is back at the helm is enough to get any JP fan excited for this upcoming movie! And, of course, I'm also pumped that a skilled actress like Scarlett Johansson is joining the fray. Here's hoping she absolutely crushes it!

Fans can prepare for the new entry starring Scarlett Johansson by streaming the original trilogy with a Peacock subscription, while the World trilogy is streamable for Max subscribers. 

If you are looking for an upcoming book-to-screen adaptation written by one of the most well-known screenwriters-turned-authors on the planet, features massive stars, and has a thrilling story about a mysterious organism that could wipe out humanity, we have a movie you won’t want to miss. At some point in the near future, we’ll all get to see the movie adaptation of David Koepp's book Cold Storage. This upcoming thriller sounds like a throwback to great ‘90s movies like 12 Monkeys and Outbreak.

If this is the first you’re hearing about StudioCanal’s long-in-the-works project, worry not, because we are about to break down everything we know about the movie so far, including its cast, the story, and the book on which it is based. There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s get started with Cold Storage. 

What Is The Cold Storage Release Date?

StudioCanal has yet to announce a release date for Cold Storage, so we don’t know when the upcoming thriller will hit the big screen. 

It could randomly pop up on the 2024 movie calendar, but at the same time, it could also come out sometime later down the road. This shouldn't be a sign of confirmation or anything like that, but the movie’s IMDB page has a 2025 release date while a listing page on Plex has a release date of June 12, 2025 (this should be taken with a grain of salt because that is a Thursday).

We’ll make sure to keep you updated on the Cold Storage release date as official information is released. Until then, check out what else we know about the movie…

Liam Neeson And Joe Keery Lead The Cold Storage Cast

The character names haven’t been released at the time of this writing, but the Cold Storage cast is shaping up to be an ensemble of great stars, to say the very least. In 2022, StudioCanal announced that Liam Neeson and Joe Keery would be leading the cast. Neeson, who has only one Oscar nomination despite having a ton of great performances, most recently appeared in Wildcat and In the Land of Saints and Sinners. Keery, who is set to appear in the fifth and final season of Stranger Things at some point in 2025, has been on a run the past few years thanks to the popular Netflix series, the Fargo TV show, and movies like Free Guy.

In October 2022, Deadline reported that Georgina Campbell, the star of Barbarian, one of the best horror movies in recent memory, would be joining Neeson and Keery in the sci-fi thriller. A few months later, in March 2023, Deadline published a follow-up report in which it was revealed that Smile star Sosie Bacon and Lesley Manville were also set to appear in the upcoming thriller. Again, we don’t know who everyone is playing, but those details should become less murky in the coming weeks and months. 

Cold Storage Centers Around A Deadly Organism And The Race To Save Humanity

The movie centers around a constantly mutating micro-organism that was locked in the belly of a military facility. But when the government sells the building to a self-storage company and the underground temperatures start to rise, so too does the risk of the destructive organism escaping and bringing an extinction-level event.

Cold Storage will follow a retired bioterror operative (could this be Liam Neeson’s role?) and two employees of the facility (possibly Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell) as they find themselves in a race against time to save the world from coming to an end. 

Cold Storage Is Based On David Koepp’s Debut Novel Of The Same Name

Fans of great ‘90s sci-fi movies like Jurassic Park, the first Mission: Impossible movie, and 2002’s Spider-Man are in for a treat as not only did those films' screenwriter, David Koepp, pen the Cold Storage script, the movie is based on his 2019 novel of the same name. Much like the case with Michael Crichton and Jurassic Park, the rights for Koepp’s debut novel were picked up well before the book was published, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

As detailed in the brief description on David Koepp’s website, the book follows Roberto Diaz, a bio-terror operative who contains a deadly micro-organism deep underground only to discover decades later that it has found a way to escape. With the help of two security guards, Diaz sets out the end this once and for all. In its book review, the New York Times called Cold Storage “pure, unadulterated entertainment,” which is honestly what we should expect from a story from a screenwriter-turned-author like Koepp. 

The Movie Is Being Directed By Jonny Campbell

StudioCanal has announced that Jonny Campbell will be directing Cold Storage. Though his name may not be as recognizable as David Koepp, Campbell is more than up to the task of leading the project based on his various TV credits. These include everything from episodes of Westworld and Doctor Who and The Casual Vacancy to Am I Being Unreasonable?, to name only a few. This will only be Campbell’s second feature film, with the first being the 2006 sci-fi comedy Alien Autopsy.

Production On Cold Storage Got Underway In March 2023

Production on Cold Storage got underway in March 2023, as shown in a post by the StudioCanal Instagram account. The photo, which appears to be in Rome, based on the information written on the clapper, showed a busy car-lined street but nothing more. The Deadline article detailing the final casting additions stated that the shoot was slated to take place in Italy and Morroco.

It is not known if production was able to wrap by the time the 2023 WGA Writers and SAG-AFTRA strikes started in May and July 2023, respectively, as no one from the production has shared any additional details since the work stoppages came to an end. We’ll make sure to keep you updated as more information becomes available. 

While we wait for more information about Cold Storage, its release date, and more about its cast, now is a good time to take a trip down memory lane and revisit some of the best sci-fi movies of all time or watch some classics for the first time.

“Life finds a way.” It’s a statement that’s guided fans of the Jurassic universe for a little over three decades now. With the arrival of the wide open ending to Jurassic World Dominion, the 2022 trilogy ender had everyone wondering what would come next. Well, that news is apparently in the wild now, as a surprise sequel to one of the best sci-fi movie franchises has been announced. 

What's more, legacy writing talent and a surprising potential release date are both stoking the fires as well. Freshly reported by THR, it appears that writer David Koepp has been working on a Jurassic World follow-up. What’s more, the scribe behind both Jurassic Park and The Lost World has apparently been at this task for long enough that this report has mentioned a 2025 release date as a hinted possibility. 

I don’t know about you, but that seems rather promising, especially almost two years since we last saw these big screen dinos in action. And even with Jurassic World Dominion co-writer/director Colin Trevorrow admitting how he felt Jurassic Park was “inherently unfranchisable,” the man who helped guide the most recent trilogy knew that the door was wide open for more adventure to come. 

Secrecy, as one would expect, is key to the movement on this Jurassic project. While a potential release date for next year is supposedly in the cards, the only other indication of what’s on the horizon is in the statement that this “new Jurassic era” is starting from the ground up. So we’re potentially looking at a new story, with new characters, in the universe established by Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster. 

With all of the current information in mind, one could presume that until we learn more, this latest twist in the tale might spark those old rumors that a remake of Jurassic Park could be on the way. Even the hiring of screenwriter David Koepp feels like a decision primed to bring back that legacy magic. 

Honestly, and I could be wrong, I don’t think that’s the case. I think hiring back Koepp’s steady writing hand in a post-Jurassic World climate is meant to give the future as steady a foundation as possible to be built around. Since the man was around in an era where he got to share credit with author Michael Crichton for the finished product that is Jurassic Park, what better way to answer fan criticisms after Jurassic World’s trilogy? 

We’re still in the dark about where the Jurassic saga will go next. But revealing that David Koepp is helping write the next chapter should be enough to get any old school fan at least a bit excited to see what could result. Maybe this next movie will be so good, audiences will move in herds to see it when it finally premieres. 

At the time of publication, you can find the Jurassic Park trilogy streaming with the use of a Netflix subscription. Which also happens to be the way to enjoy Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, as well as this year’s anticipated animated follow-up Jurassic World: Chaos Theory.

Since we’re a little under a year away from Indiana Jones 5 finally hitting theaters after multiple delays and setbacks, many fans of the franchise will be looking back on the past entries in preparation for the upcoming movie, including the polarizing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. While the 2008 movie earned many positive reviews from professional critics, public reception was decidedly more mixed, with one of the most critiqued aspects of the fourth Indiana Jones movie being the inclusion of aliens. As it turns out, David Koepp, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’s screenwriter, was never on board with 

David Koepp, whose other major credits include the first two Jurassic Park movies, Carlito’s Way and Spider-Man, stopped by the Script Apart podcast to primarily talk about his work on the first Mission: Impossible movie. But towards the end of the episode, Koepp briefly addressed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull while discussing the “failures” of his career, saying:

While the first three Indiana Jones movies delved into religious/mystical territory with the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Sankara Stones in The Temple of Doom and the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull went down a sci-fi path. It was revealed that the crystal skull the story was based around belong to the skeleton of an alien life form that boasted psychic powers, though they came from a different dimension rather than another planet in our reality. Upon the skull being returned to the rest of its body alongside 12 other alien skeletons, their flying saucer within the temple where they’d rested for who knows how long took off, and these reanimated aliens departed to another dimension.

As David Koepp implied, it was director Steven Spielberg and co-creator George Lucas to toss out the alien element of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Koepp didn’t share what he wanted to do instead, but considering that Lucas, who crafted Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’s story with Jeff Nathanson, had been keen on telling an alien-centric Indiana Jones 4 since the early ‘90s, it’s no wonder this movie turned out the way it did. Admittedly, there were other elements of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that earned criticism, including Shia LaBeouf as Indy’s son “Mutt” Williams, but as far as the alien aspect goes, Koepp acknowledged that this wasn’t the best creative direction.

Wherever you fall on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we can all see what the James Mangold-directed Indiana Jones 5 has in store when it comes out on June 30, 2023. Plot details are still being kept secret, but Harrison Ford is joined in the cast by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Kretschmann, Boyd Holbrook, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Toby Jones, Antonio Banderas and Olivier Richters.

When Stephen King was in Colorado during the filming of the 1997 miniseries version of The Shining, he was inspired to pursue something that he had never tried before: adapting someone else’s work. During his down time on the shoot, he watched the Danish series The Kingdom, made by filmmaker Lars von Trier, and he was so affected by the material that he decided he wanted to develop an English language version.

The problem he immediately faced was getting a hold of the rights. As he describes in his interview with Tony Magistrale for the book Hollywood’s Stephen King, The Kingdom was owned by Columbia Pictures, and the studio was in the process of trying to turn it into a feature film – thus, not willing to sell. Fortunately for King, screenwriters had a devil of a time squeezing the content of the eight-episode original into a two hour package. After developing a number of unworkable drafts, the studio was in a position to negotiate with the author.

A trade was made. Stephen King got the rights to The Kingdom, which he remade as 2004’s Kingdom Hospital. Columbia Pictures acquired “Secret Window, Secret Garden,” one of the four novellas from the 1990 collection Four Past Midnight. Said King of it in the interview,

Anthony Minghella, the director of The Talented Mr. Ripley and The English Patient, was briefly attached to helm the Stephen King adaptation, but ultimately the job went to David Koepp – who was coming off the success of writing the screenplay for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, which Columbia Pictures produced. With “Secret Garden” being largely associated with the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, that half of the title was axed, and Secret Window starring Johnny Depp went into production in the summer of 2003, splitting time between Québec, Canada and New York.

Released in March 2004, the film has a mixed legacy. Arriving less than a year after Gore Verbinski’s Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl, Johnny Depp’s star power was skyrocketing… but critics on the whole didn’t respond to the trope-heavy thriller. Secret Window has some style to it, but an argument can be made that it was doomed from the start – and that’s what is really at the core of this week’s Adapting Stephen King.

What “Secret Window, Secret Garden” Is About

Being perhaps the most dedicated professional writers alive, Stephen King seems to have endless thoughts on the work and the process, and he regularly channels his musings through the stories he tells and the characters he creates. “Secret Window, Secret Garden” exemplifies this tendency, and what’s funny is that King sees it as a kind of middle child between two of his other works that tackle similar subject matter: Misery and The Dark Half.

In the preface before “Secret Window, Secret Garden” in Four Past Midnight, Stephen King explains that the origins of the novella can be traced back to when he was writing The Dark Half – which was a book he wrote partially in response to his alter ego, Richard Bachman, being exposed.  In that novel, the protagonist, author Thad Beaumont, comes face-to-face with George Stark, a supernatural physical manifestation of his bloodthirsty pseudonym. It’s King exploring “the powerful hold fiction can achieve over the writer,” which mirrors how Misery is about the influence that fiction can have on the reader.

“Secret Window, Secret Garden” is Stephen King’s attempt at executing both ideas simultaneously in the same narrative – executed through the conflict between novelist Morton Rainey and a mysterious stranger named John Shooter, who accuses Mort of stealing one of his stories.

The protagonist, who is in the middle of ugly divorce proceedings after discovering that his wife has been unfaithful, first meets Shooter when the Mississippi dairy farmer arrives on the doorstep of his remote home in Maine. The Quaker hat-wearing mystery man presents Mort with a short story titled “Secret Window, Secret Garden” that bears striking resemblance to a horror tale the author wrote called “Sowing Season,” and he demands Mort admit to the plagiarism.

Mort is certain that he didn’t steal the story, knowing it was published in a literary magazine years prior to when Shooter says he wrote his version – but the accuser demands physical proof. As the writer tries to hunt down a copy of the publication, Shooter demonstrates that he isn’t messing around, escalating his behavior from killing Mort’s cat to burning down the house he used to share with his wife.

Wanting to handle the situation himself and not get the police involved, Mort tries to hunt John Shooter down himself while simultaneously attempting to get a copy of the magazine, and it leads him down a rabbit hole that forces him to confront some terrifying realities.

How David Koepp’s Secret Window Differs From “Secret Window, Secret Garden”

The fact that “Secret Window, Secret Garden” primarily centers on one character in one location gives Stephen King license to have the majority of conflict and drama in the novella play out inside Morton Rainey’s head… but for reasons that should be obvious, David Koepp couldn’t directly translate that in the making of Secret Window. As a result, the film changes quite a bit from the original story, including the addition of a whole new ending.

Some of the alterations are minor. For example, Mort (Johnny Depp) doesn’t have a cat in the movie, and instead has a nearly blind dog named Chico – though they do suffer the same fate. The adaptation also changes the timeline of Shooter’s terror campaign, as the death of the author’s pet and his house burning down don’t happen on the same night like they do in the source material. This ends up eliminating the debate in the story regarding whether or not the antagonist could have committed both crimes.

Because the movie can’t have Mort internally rationalize why he doesn’t want to go to the police following his pet’s murder, the adaptation sees the character make much more of an effort to get outside help. This includes going to the local sheriff, Dave Newsome (Len Cariou) – who is only briefly mentioned in Stephen King’s version – and then hiring a private detective named Ken Karsch (Charles S. Dutton) for help and protection.

In the film, Karsch winds up becoming a substitute for Greg Carstairs, who is the caretaker of Mort’s home in the novella and ends up assisting in the John Shooter investigation. Both he and Karsch are killed under the same circumstances.

Perhaps the biggest change in Secret Window outside of the ending is regarding Mort Rainey’s history of plagiarism prior to his encounter with Shooter. In Stephen King’s original text, Mort recalls late in the narrative that he once stole a story from a classmate in a creative writing class, and while he kept waiting for some kind of consequence, nothing ever happened. The guy’s name was John Kintner, and he – with emphasis on his first name – becomes half of the puzzle in the big twist: Mort Rainey and John Shooter are the same person.

(In both versions, the “Shooter” part comes from the hometown of Ted Milner [Timothy Hutton], the man who was having an affair with Mort’s wife – though it’s Shooter's Bay, Tennessee in the movie, and Shooter's Knob, Tennessee in the book.)

David Koepp’s adaptation has a bizarrely different approach to Mort’s history stealing stories. Relatively early in the film, his ex-wife Amy (Maria Bello) mentions the incident in passing, and later it’s said that the only people who know about what happened are Mort, Amy, the person he plagiarized, and the lawyers. The name “John Kintner” is never mentioned.

Also added to the movie is John Shooter’s claim that Mort Rainey rewrote his original ending – and while this doesn’t make any real sense within the narrative, it’s basically a meta “joke” referencing the fact that the film and novella have different endings. Both have Mort discovering that he has had a psychotic break, but as written by Stephen King, “Secret Window, Secret Garden” ends when Mort tries to kill Amy and is himself gunned down by a man named Fred Evans.

In the movie, Mort essentially reenacts the crime that is featured at the end of the short story that he wrote – which is to say that he kills both Amy and Ted, buries them in his garden, and feasts upon the corn that grows from the soil around their bodies.

Is It Worthy Of The King?

That’s a quote from Charlie Kaufman (as portrayed by Nicolas Cage) in Spike Jonze’s Adaptation, a movie that has nothing to do with Secret Window, and was released a little over a year earlier, but it pops in my brain every time I think about Stephen King’s novella and David Koepp’s adaptation. The “multiple personality” twist is a boring one that one would expect to be beneath the creative mind of the author – and yet he tried it out with “Secret Widow, Secret Garden,” and his mediocre story was turned into a less-than-mediocre movie.

Koepp’s movie has some style, with some nifty tracking shots that travel through mirrors utilized to take audiences in and out of Mort’s perspective, but its greatest flaw is an inability to otherwise make the narrative cinematic or engaging. The director discusses in the home video supplemental materials that he actively avoided sequences where the protagonist is doing any writing, as it’s not an activity that is particularly engaging to watch… and yet Secret Window is a film that has more scenes with the main character napping than any other I can think of.

These naps are vital in their own way to the narrative, as it’s when Mort is dozing that John Shooter gets down to his business, but it’s also a blunt storytelling tool when it comes to a twist involving Dissociative Identity Disorder and doesn’t provide any fun reward in a second viewing. It does legitimately have a better ending than Stephen King's story, which fizzles out undramatically, but it's still a mostly dull movie that you only need to watch once to “get” – unless you find yourself in the mood to try and count the number of product placement efforts for Mountain Dew and Doritos.

If you’re looking to read a Stephen King story about a character grappling with split personalities, The Dark Half is a vastly superior choice over “Secret Window, Secret Garden,” and the same can be said of George A. Romero’s adaptation of the former versus David Koepp’s adaptation of the latter (though Timothy Hutton fans really win either way).

How To Watch David Koepp’s Secret Window

If you have a Netflix subscription, you can start watching David Koepp’s Secret Window as soon as you finish reading this article. On the other hand, if you don’t have access to the streaming service, you still have plenty of watch options. The movie is available to either rent or purchase digitally at major retailers – including Amazon, Vudu, Google, and Apple – and for those of you building the Ultimate Stephen King collection, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray in 2007 (it includes all of the special features from the DVD release, including a director’s commentary track and multiple featurettes).

For next week’s Adapting Stephen King, I’ll be taking a return trip to Jerusalem’s Lot for an in-depth look at 2004’s Salem’s Lot – the TNT miniseries from 2004 directed by Mikael Salomon. How does it compare to both the book and Tobe Hooper’s beloved version from 1979? Look for the piece in the CinemaBlend TV section on Wednesday, and in the meantime you can read past installments of this column by clicking through the banners below.

Ahead of Zoë Kravitz’s turn as Catwoman in The Batman, the actress is the star of a new offering exclusive to those with HBO Max subscriptions, Kimi. The movie directed by Contagion and No Sudden Move filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is a tight pandemic thriller that follows Kravitz as a tech worker who comes across a piece of audio she believes to be evidence of a crime. Let’s talk about what happened and what goes down in the Kimi ending. 

The suspenseful film, which has received overall positive reviews, starts by setting up Zoë Kravitz’s Angela Childs, who works on improving the intelligence of a digital assistant likened to Alexa or Siri called “Kimi.” Angela has agoraphobia and is living in Seattle during the COVID-19 pandemic. She lives in a huge place that has massive windows to look out to see her neighbors across the way, especially two of the movie’s key players, a man named Terry she’s been seeing casually (played by Byron Bowers) and a mysterious onlooker (Devin Ratray). 

She spends her days listening to audio she calls “streams” in which random people called upon Kimi for something and it didn’t understand and provide the proper response. Angela hears the audio and adds adjustments to the Kimi software so it can distinguish difficult commands such as when someone asks to play “ME!” it knows they are talking about the Taylor Swift song. Before we get to the rest, be warned: SPOILERS are ahead for Kimi. 

What Happened At The End Of Kimi

The inciting incident of Kimi is when Angela hears a piece of audio that seems off from the others. She listens closely and tunes into a stream that sounds like a woman who is in danger and being hurt. Angela’s first plan of action is to speak to her employer and report the audio stream, however her boss is uninterested in bothering with it. He asks her to not get involved, but she ends up asking a coworker of hers about it and he gives her information that allows her to hear more streams from the same audio device of the mysterious woman. 

What Angela learns is that the woman, whose name is Samantha, was raped and subsequently killed after she threatened to reveal the truth. Angela decides to get in contact with one of the corporation’s heads, Natalie Chowdhury (played by Rita Wilson). Initially she cannot get through to Natalie, but after many phone calls, she returns her call and asks Angela if she’d like to come to her office to listen to the audio with her and the company of the FBI. Angela pushes through her fear of leaving her home to meet with Natalie, but once she gets there the company head invalidates her, citing her mental health history and they are not in the company of the FBI. 

Angela goes to the restroom and returns to Natalie’s office to two men charging at her. She frantically escapes and decides to walk to the nearby FBI headquarters to report the case. While she’s on foot, an expert begins to track her and the two men catch up to her and take her back to her house to get rid of the evidence of the woman’s murder. The mysterious onlooker sees she is perhaps in trouble and comes with them inside the house. While held captive at her home, Angela’s mother video calls her and she asks Kimi to answer the call, giving her warning to her intruders. Then, using her digital assistant as a sidekick, Angela gets away briefly and finds a nail gun as a weapon and shoots the intruders, gets help from her mysterious neighbor (who reveals himself to be a man named Kevin) and calls 9-1-1 just as Terry shows up at her door with flowers. 

Who Was Behind The Audio In Kimi?

Angela finds herself in such a dangerous situation in Kimi because the rapist who is actively trying to cover up the murder of the woman he raped is the CEO of the company she works for, Bradley Hasling. He had the men who are following Angela throughout the movie to kill her and subsequently follow her to destroy all evidence of the rape and murder. 

Hasling is the man who is showed in a meeting at the very beginning of Kimi and later after he is revealed in a flashback image shares that he is the one who gave the woman he raped the Kimi. Because Angela was listening and decided to delve into it deeper, Hasling is arrested at the end of the film and justice is served. 

Angela’s Backstory Revealed

Angela is agoraphobic, which is an anxiety disorder in which you fear or avoid places or situations that cause you to panic or make you feel trapped. Per the Mayo Clinic, people with agoraphobia often have a hard time feeling safe in public places. Her disorder is made known early in the film when Angela is invited outside to grab a bite to eat with Terry and she becomes panicked before leaving her house and invites him over instead. Angela is seeing a therapist and it is hinted that she lost her father and the massive house she is staying in was his. 

Just ahead of the third act of Kimi, we learn that Angela was sexually assaulted and placed on trial instead of the man who assaulted her, as she reveals while speaking to Rita Wilson’s Natalie. It then makes sense why Angela is particularly interested in getting to the bottom of Samantha’s murder and has a “strong feeling” that the audio is from a situation of the sort. Her trauma from the incident could have very well led to her agoraphobia. In Kimi, once Angela solves the mystery at the center of the film and takes down the guys after her, she makes significant progress to get past her anxiety and is seen going out with Terry outside her house. 

In the final shot of Kimi, Angela has dyed her hair light pink instead of its bright blue and it looks as if she’s happy and enjoying her life. It’s a case of solving another mystery that helped Angela begin to get past her own obstacles. Now that you’ve streamed Kimi, check out what other great HBO movies or other Zoë Kravitz movies and TV shows to stream now, here on CinemaBlend. 

While not at the same level of popularity as superheroes like Batman and Captain America, The Green Hornet is a character who’s nonetheless managed to endure for decades across various media, including the live-action movie starring Seth Rogen as the eponymous character. Over the years, there have been several attempts to get another Green Hornet movie off the ground, and today brings work that Jurassic Park writer David Koepp will help bring this reboot to life.

Back in April, it was announced that Universal Pictures is partnering with Amasia Entertainment on the Green Hornet reboot, which is officially titled The Green Hornet and Kato. Now THR has dropped the news that David Koepp will pen the screenplay, although no details were provided about his take on the Green Hornet mythos will differ from what we got in 2011. Along with writing the first two movies in the Jurassic Park/World franchise, Koepp’s other notable credits include Carlito’s Way, Spider-Man, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and, most recently, You Should Have Left, which he also directed.

The Green Hornet reboot has been in development since 2016, back when Paramount Pictures was intending to tackle it, and Gavin O’Connor and Sean O’Keefe were brought on to direct and write, respectively. Now though, Universal is getting a second swing at the property after having released the 2011 Green Hornet movie, which was met with mixed reviews and made close to $228 million worldwide. Because the movie didn’t perform commercially as expected, plans for a sequel were scrapped.

There are a lot of questions surrounding The Green Hornet and Kato, particularly in terms of tone and setting. Seth Rogen’s Green Hornet movie was presented in a more comedic way, so will the reboot follow suit or will it aim for a more serious feel, i.e. something gritty and noir-like? It’s also worth noting that like most superheroes, Green Hornet stories are told across numerous time periods, from his original 1930s roots to the ‘60s TV shows to various comic book series being set in the modern day. So while The Green Hornet and Kato could easily also be a contemporary story, it might be interesting if the movie ends up going the period piece route.

In any case, David Koepp being hired to write The Green Hornet and Kato reminds us that Universal is looking to get this project rolling. Other talent attached to the project include Amasia co-founders Michael Helfant and Bradley Gallo as producers, and Universal’s senior vice president of production Sara Scott and director of development Lexi Barta overseeing the reboot on behalf of the studio.

Between this movie and the animated TV show that Kevin Smith is working on, the Green Hornet property seems poised to make a big comeback in the near future. Be sure to keep checking back with CinemaBlend for updates on how both projects are coming along. In the meantime, keep track of the movies on track to arrive next year with our 2021 release schedule.

Having recently collaborated on the suspense-thriller You Should Have Left, writer-director David Koepp (Spider-Man, Mission: Impossible) and his leading man Kevin Bacon set their sights on something different. Koepp had come up with an original story, Yard Work, and had discovered the perfect portal for it. Audible is playing host to Koepp’s new scripted novella. It’s the screenwriter’s first work of short fiction, and it has as much Stephen King in it as it does David Koepp’s own Stir of Echoes adaptation.

Yard Work follows an elderly and recently widowed judge, Herman, who retreats to a home in Wisconsin. There, he wrestles with grief and alcoholism… but also encounters a deadly weed that won’t go away. Koepp recently hopped on with CinemaBlend to talk about the germ of this idea, and how he got Kevin Bacon on board. He tells us:

Jeff is a local hardware store clerk who tries to help Herman, the main character, combat his weeds. But nothing on this Earth can stop the threat that comes from the nature growing in Herman’s yard. Unless it’s all in his mind.

Talking about the work that went into his characterizations, David Koepp admits to some personal inspirations when carving out his roles in Yard Work, stating:

But beyond the metaphorical struggles that Herman faces in Yard Work, David Koepp says that the idea of the trees and roots of terror stemmed from his own experiences after Hurricane Sandy affected his Northeastern home. He was tending to his yard, cleaning up after the natural devastation left in the wake of the storm, and became obsessed with the act of chopping back vines and pulling them out of the trees.

Want to see where that story goes? David Koepp’s short novella Yard Work, narrated by Kevin Bacon, currently is available on Audible. Click here to listen to a sample, and purchase the full story. The reviews are solid, and it’s definitely an original and engrossing tale that will sweep you up and have you holding your breath until the final beats.

David Koepp certainly made a splash in the superhero genre when he penned the script for 2002’s Spider-Man, so much so that fans still talk about the film. Unfortunately, Koepp hasn’t done any other work in the genre since and doesn’t seem to have any plans to do so. So why doesn’t the accomplished screenwriter want to return to the world of superhuman beings? Well, he’s now provided the answer.

David Koepp recently explained that while he wouldn’t say that he’ll never return to the superhero genre, he’s not planning to anytime soon due to the intricate nature of superhero storytelling today. This is a landscape that’s starkly different from the one he entered years ago:

During his chat with THR, he made a good point when noting the difference in what the superhero genre looks like now and what it looked like back in the early 2000s. During that time, superhero movies weren’t as plentiful and were fairly straightforward in terms of storytelling. Today, Hollywood is experiencing a surplus of comic book movies, and the cinematic universes from Marvel Studios and DC Entertainment have allowed the storytelling to become a bit more nuanced.

It goes without saying that David Koepp’s Spider-Man screenplay helped play a major role in ushering in the modern era of superhero films. Of course, the Superman and Batman franchises were already alive and well, and Marvel Entertainment had already produced Blade and X-Men features. But Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man truly helped to redefine what was possible for superheroes on the big screen. With Spider-Man becoming a critical and financial success, you can also view it as Koepp leaving while he was still on top.

Despite not having ventured back into the superhero realm, Koepp has still made waves in other genres since. He notably penned the script for Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as well as Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and 2017’s The Mummy. Most recently, he jumped into the horror genre with Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried’s You Should Have Left.

The superhero landscape has changed quite a bit since he’s been gone, but David Koepp could still make some solid contributions if he does choose to re-enter the arena. Both Marvel and DC’s cinematic universe are still growing and pulling in plenty of talent along the way. And one also has to consider the rise of niche superhero properties as well. So if Koepp wants another stab at a superhero, the opportunities are all there for him.

You can revisit David Koepp’s Spider-Man by streaming it on Hulu.

Bride of Frankenstein has been in development hell for years but, like its eponymous monster, it looks like plans for a new big screen adaptation could finally be resurrected. The film’s screenwriter recently teased some details surrounding the Universal Monster movie, including what we can expect to see when it finally hits theaters.

When Bride of Frankenstein was initially announced, Bill Condon was attached to direct, and Angelina Jolie was set to star. It was meant to be part of Universal Pictures’ Dark Universe. That burgeoning franchise ultimately failed to perform the way the studio had envisioned, following the lackluster response to 2017’s The Mummy. Instead, they seem to have changed gears, handing off the idea to Blumhouse. This year’s The Invisible Man wound up working successfully as a standalone film. Now, it looks like Bride of Frankenstein may get a similar treatment, as screenwriter David Koepp recently revealed that Bride is still very much alive:

The Bride has long been an iconic movie monster and, like Frankenstein, her story has always been a tragic one. But she’s largely been relegated to a supporting role. That doesn’t mean her story won’t resonate with audiences today. It seems reasonable to expect that the new Bride of Frankenstein, like The Invisible Man, will be adapted to fit modern themes and, as David Koepp told Bloody Disgusting, many of those themes definitely draw parallels to the Bride’s origin story:

Bride of Frankenstein isn’t the only Monster movie Universal has lined up, as the studio is also developing a new remake of Dracula. However, David Koepp is right that there’s a strong case to be made for why the Bride of Frankenstein is ready for her time in the 21st century spotlight, whether it winds up being a modern adaptation or not. Unlike her monstrous hubby, she’s never really been given a treatment that reflects how interesting her story could be, and this could be the perfect time to do that.

There’s no official word on when Universal Pictures will move forward with bringing Bride of Frankenstein to the big screen - but the plans definitely sound intriguing.

What would you want to see in a Bride of Frankenstein remake? Let us know in the comments!

Kevin Bacon is one of Hollywood’s finest actors, and his work in the horror genre has showcased some of his best and most iconic performances. The original Friday The 13th was one of the first feature productions to hire him, and that began a cycle of him making some really fantastic scary movies every ten years or so, with titles including the 1990 double feature of Flatliners and Tremors, and 2000’s Hollow Man.

Recognizing this legacy, any fan would reasonably hope that his latest, David Koepp’s You Should Have Left would add to it (acknowledging that the project reunites Bacon with the writer/director for the first time since 1999’s Stir Of Echoes) – but that’s an expectation that should be readied for disappointment. An actor can only be as good as the material he’s given, and the material here is lousy.

Based on the book of the same name by author Daniel Kehlmann (though not really, as Koepp’s adaptation significantly alters the source material), You Should Have Left introduces us to Theo Conroy (Kevin Bacon), a former banker with a dark and very public past that causes him to receive death stares from anyone who recognizes him. He’s trying to move on with his life, specifically by focusing more on his family – including his totally naïve daughter Ella (Avery Tiiu Essex) and much-younger actress wife, Suzanna (Amanda Seyfried).

Stressed by constant public pressure, and ever suspicious about his constantly-texting wife, Theo requests that they rent a remote house in Wales to try and get away from the world, and Suzanna agrees. What they discover when they arrive is a thoroughly modern building with a surprise labyrinth-like design inside, and on the very first night there is discovered weirdness, with Theo following a series of lit halls to a laundry room that has an ominous Polaroid posted on the wall. Naturally, the spookiness only escalates from there – but the number of legitimate scares sadly does not.

Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried can’t do a lot with so little provided to them from the material.

To the film’s credit, the production design is outstanding. Taking a page out of The Shining’s playbook, there is a cool unsettling feeling that comes with impossible construction – where the interior doesn’t match the interior – and it’s compelling to watch it morph as it further consumes its inhabitants. It’s the kind of setting that is expressive enough to qualify as a character within the story… and unfortunately it’s the most interesting one that the film presents.

As much as you want to like Kevin Bacon in any role, You Should Have Left makes it pretty damn hard. There’s a certain failure to read the room from a zeitgeist perspective, as the film tries to be playfully mysterious for a long time regarding what it was that Theo did that made everyone in the world hate him. This envelops the character with a creepy vibe, all while the movie props him up as the protagonist, and it’s a circumstance where the movie makes matters worse by outfitting him with an unpleasant repressed rage.

Making matters worse, all of it also reflects poorly on Suzanna. The film is smart enough to point out the 27-year age difference between Theo and his wife, highlighting it as a source of conflict in their relationship, but what it fails to adequately provide is an explanation for why they got together in the first place. It’s a source of distracting confusion at the start of the movie as the mystery around Theo is maintained, and it’s an issue that’s only exacerbated once the answers to that mystery are revealed and still no further details regarding the couple’s history is provided.

Every creative move in You Should Have Left has been done before, and the dialogue is rough.

Complementing the weak characters in You Should Have Left are a weak story, and poorly-written dialogue. It makes effort at times to be clever, throwing a bit of non-linear storytelling, and a lurking creep named Stetler into the mix, but the efforts turn out to be tricks that we’ve seen in plenty of other films before, and it renders the twists obvious and dull. Further undercutting scenes are conversations that feel stilted and have characters stating the obvious; or even worse there are the cringe-worthy moments where Theo is alone and talking out loud to himself so that the audience knows how he is feeling. At first you question reality wondering if Kevin Bacon is giving an uncharacteristically mediocre performance, but the truth is that it’s just the script.

You Should Have Left isn’t scary; it’s tired.

As a horror film, the cardinal sin that You Should Have Left commits is that it’s simply not scary at all. For reasons mentioned above one can call it “eerie,” but every obvious effort it makes to actively frighten the audience inspires eye-rolls. Letting the look of the house and its changing floorplan do all of the heavy lifting, there is no creativity demonstrated with the cinematography. It feels like a film trapped in the techniques of the late 1990s, which isn’t even excused by the notoriously limited Blumhouse budget given that this isn’t exactly a story that is pouring money into any expansive set pieces or an expansive cast. It’s a movie that desperately needs flair and style, but it has none.

The title of the film comes from a scribbled note that Theo discovers in his journal mid-way through his stay at the remote home in Wales, suggesting that he missed his chance to escape, but it’s also non-purposefully a direct message for the audience, and ultimately a perfect example of a case where a movie perfectly names itself. When recounting Kevin Bacon’s great contributions to the horror genre in the future, this one will purposefully be left off the list, and we’ll just have to wait for the next one and hope that it does the job that You Should Have Left fails to do.

Last week, 1993’s Jurassic Park celebrated its 27th anniversary since hitting theaters and becoming one of the most beloved franchise films of all time. Most of us would agree it turned out just about perfect, but fans of the original Michael Crichton novel may remember a certain exhilarating raft scene that does not appear in the movie.

On a new episode of CinemaBlend’s podcast ReelBlend, co-host Jake Hamilton of Fox 32 asked Jurassic Park script writer David Koepp about the raft scene that has long been rumored to have made the script, but been skipped over during production. Here’s what Koepp had to say:

It sounds like the raft scene was most definitely supposed to be in Jurassic Park until it went through Steven Spielberg's hands. The problem was the logistics of actually filming the scene. At the time, there was a lot of impressive movie magic being tackled, such as the dino animatronics. Adding in a water raft scene was evidently overambitious for the movie made on $63 million, not to mention Spielberg having already worked on plenty of water-related sequences when filming 1975's Jaws.

In the scene, Sam Neill’s Grant is with the kids, Lex and Tim, on a journey aboard a raft and are greeted by a T-Rex who chases them in the water as they nervously float along. Although it's an especially exhilarating sequence in the novel, Steven Speilberg clearly wasn’t up to the task. Even if it was missing a key set piece from the source material, I’d say Jurassic Park turned out just great without it.

David Koepp is a legendary Hollywood writer who has written the screenplays for Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He talked to ReelBlend about the unexpected way the famous Samuel L. Jackson line “Hold onto your butts” made it into the movie and why he quit working on Indiana Jones 5 to pave the way for James Mangold’s take. Listen to the full interview below:

David Koepp’s latest project is a horror movie for Blumhouse called You Should Have Left, starring Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried. It’s hitting VOD on June 18. As far as the world bred from Isla Nublar, Jurassic World: Dominion is set to resume filming this July ahead of its summer 2021 release date after global health concerns stalled its production.

Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more movie news and exclusive interviews.

Christopher Nolan wants you to see Tenet in a theater. He’s virtually willing the global pandemic to come to an end so that moviegoers can safely return to movie theaters and watch his latest, twisty drama. Niki Caro and Patty Jenkins likely feel the exact same way about their movies, Mulan and Wonder Woman 1984, respectively. They were made for movie theaters, and that’s where they probably play best.

But plenty of films are able to make the transition to a smaller screen with ease, and You Should Have Left director David Koepp counts his upcoming horror-thriller as an example. Koepp has created a paranormal drama centered around a struggling family, starring Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried. And when he joined the ReelBlend podcast to discuss the film’s production, he informed us that a paid VOD release might actually be preferred, in this instance. Koepp said:

David Koepp was talking about releasing a movie in a normal theatrical cycle. But the strategy is going to be so much more difficult as movie theaters reopen and start to adjust to hosting audience members again. While we don’t have concrete details, theaters are going to have to operate at reduced capacity to maintain social distancing. And this means the majority of screens are going to be dedicated to a Mulan or a Tenet. The films like You Should Have Left would struggle to find space.

To that end, Koepp went on to tell ReelBlend that he hopes this model is sustainable simply because he prefers the paid VOD:

You can start watching Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried in David Koepp’s latest film You Should Have Left starting on Thursday, June 18. To hear our full conversation with Koepp, dive into this Bonus episode of ReelBlend:

And to stay up to date on the ever-shifting release schedule, bookmark our guide, and check it often.

Screenwriter David Koepp has been around the Hollywood block for a while, resulting in him having worked on a variety of blockbusters, including Jurassic Park, Spider-Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. All of these movies have one thing in common, be it right when they came out or in the years afterwards: they have huge fandoms.

On the one hand, having a fandom attached to a movie can be most beneficial, as there’s already a built-in support base. On the other hand, it’s no secret that fandoms can be difficult to please, especially when it comes properties that have been around for a while. This is an issue that David Koepp has run into during his career, as he recalled during his recent stop at the ReelBlend podcast with the following:

By the time the first Spider-Man movie came out in 2002, Marvel Comics’ Web-Slinger had not only been fighting bad guys in the comics for 40 years, he’d also starred in numerous TV shows (both animated and live-action) and video games. So Spider-Man already has quite the notable fanbase surrounding him, which means that his jump to the big screen was going to be under a lot of scrutiny from the get-go. Add in how internet commentary was already throwing its weight around at the time, and you can understand where David Koepp is coming from recalling his time on Spider-Man.

As for the screenwriter’s comment about Lucasfilm, while Indiana Jones isn’t as big of a property as Spider-Man, it nontheless had a sizable fanbase accumulated from the first three Indy movies, resulting in 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (which Koepp co-wrote with George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson) arguably being put under even more scrutiny than the Marvel hero’s first movie. And while Crystal Skull was met with mostly positive reception from professional critics, overall, fans of the franchise were nowhere near as enthralled with it.

Despite Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull not being one of the most beloved entries in the Harrison Ford-led franchise, until recently, David Koepp was tackling the script for the upcoming Indiana Jones 5. However, Koepp also mentioned during his ReelBlend appearance that he’s no longer writing that project project, as once James Mangold inherited directing duties from Steven Spielberg, it was decided that Mangold should take lead on the story, whether he writes it himself or brings someone else aboard to do so.

You can listen to David Koepp’s full conversation with the ReelBlend hosts below:

David Koepp’s latest movie, You Should Have Left, hits VOD this Thursday, June 18. You can learn what movies are hitting theaters later this year with our 2020 release schedule.

It goes without saying that Samuel L. Jackson has starred in a lot of high-profile movies over the years, and among the most notable blockbusters on his resume is 1993’s Jurassic Park, where he played Ray Arnold, the chief engineer at the eponymous location who met an offscreen demise. While Jackson’s Ray didn’t get nearly as much screen time compared to the main characters, he nonetheless provided one of Jurassic Park’s most memorable moments when he proclaimed, “Hold onto your butts!”

That has gone down as one of Samuel L. Jackson’s most famous lines, and it didn’t originate from the original Jurassic Park novel. In fact, the film’s writer, David Koepp, got it from Back to the Future filmmaker Robert Zemeckis while working on a completely different movie. Koepp shared the crazy origin of “Hold onto your butts” during his recent visit to the ReelBlend podcast, saying the following when asked if he had a favorite line he’d written:

Talk about being in the right place at the right time. If David Koepp (who co-wrote Death Becomes Her with Martin Donovan) hadn’t had to hang around with Robert Zemeckis while Death Becomes Her was being altered, then he’d never heard that bizarre, yet delightful line. So when the time came for Ray Arnold to restart Jurassic Park’s security system, Samuel L. Jackson probably would have said something more generic, like “Get ready!” or “Here we go!”

I think we can all agree that “Hold onto your butts!” worked out quite nicely, and in case Robert Zemeckis wasn’t aware he was the inspiration for the line, hopefully someone will let him know all these years later. In case it’s been a while since you’ve heard Samuel L. Jackson utter those words, I have you covered.

You can also listen to ReelBlend’s full interview with David Koepp below, which includes more conversation about Jurassic Park and discussion about his new movie, You Should Have Left.

The Jurassic Park franchise will pick back up with the release of Jurassic World: Dominion on June 11, 2021. While no specific plot details for the third Jurassic World movie have been revealed yet, the movie will bring the original Jurassic Park trio back into the fray; i.e. Sam Neill’s Alan Grant, Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm and Laura Dern’s Ellie Sattler, among many other returning characters.

As for movies hitting the big screen a little sooner, you can find that information in our 2020 release schedule.

Writer/director David Koepp joins us to discuss his new horror film You Should Have Left, and his amazing credits such as Jurassic Park and Spider-Man.

In another awesome bonus interview for this week, we are joined by David Koepp, the writer behind some of our favorite films like Jurassic Park, Spider-Man (2002), Mission: Impossible. David wrote and directed the upcoming Blumhouse horror film You Should Have Left, starring Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried.

He shares some amazing stories such as the origin of the famous line "hold on to your butts," writing scenes on the fly when nature gets in the way, learning from Steven Spielberg, and so much more.

Stay tuned as we'll bring you a full episode ReelBlend later this week, which will also include another wonderful guest.

Be sure to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube!

When the news came out about Sony and Disney/Marvel splitting up over Tom Holland's Spider-Man in the MCU, many fans immediately took Disney's side. That's not too surprising when you consider the MCU is part of Disney's turf -- and Disney keeps Peter Parker with his Avengers and Guardians friends. Many fans just see Sony as a background player in Holland's Spider-Man movies. An intruder in the happy family, even.

But what's "weird" to Spider-Man screenwriter David Koepp is the passion with which fans are defending Disney -- as if Disney is the "plucky underdog" who needs defending from a nefarious villain. As he noted, that's far from the case.

David Koepp isn't completely objective in this, since he wrote the script for the 2002 Spider-Man movie that launched Tobey Maguire's trilogy for Columbia/Sony. During a new interview with Den of Geek, the Jurassic Park screenwriter gave an Indiana Jones 5 update, and he was asked if he was keeping up with the news on the Disney/Sony Spider-Man split.

David Koepp's answer gave a shout-out to Sony's animated Oscar winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and shaded Marvel Cinematic Universe fans for their overboard defense of Disney:

Yeah, Disney is the farthest thing from an underdog. But fans just want Spider-Man to stay in the same cinematic universe as Mr. Stark and the Avengers, etc., and defending Disney may look like the best way to be Team MCU. However, if fans were more critical of Disney, maybe Disney/Marvel Studios wouldn't be able to make huge demands and then step back -- knowing Marvel fans would do a lot of very public arguing for them.

Both Disney and Sony have valid arguments to make over the joint use of Spider-Man. Fans don't have all of the information from negotiations (neither does David Koepp) but it's common to see movie viewers sharing reasoned arguments for why X made the bigger mistake.

If you ask Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe Russo -- who is openly Team Disney/Marvel -- Sony made a "tragic mistake" to let Spider-Man leave the care of Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige. Sony's CEO has said the door is closed for now, arguing "Kevin didn't do all the work" to make Tom Holland's Spider-Man movies a success.

Kevin Feige said he knew this Sony partnership wasn't meant to last forever, and apparently it was fraught from the start. Tom Holland still plans to continue playing Spider-Man and he has high hopes that his movies can get even better from here.

We'll have to wait and see what happens next, but we know Sony's Marvel Universe has Venom on the calendar for October 2, 2020. Keep up with everything heading to the big screen next year with our 2020 movie release date schedule.

Come on Indy, it’s time to crack the whip! Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones 5 has been in development limbo for three years. Release dates have shifted and screenwriters have shuffled. Fans are getting weary about the long-awaited sequel. Thankfully, with its current date all the way in summer 2021, there’s still time for the production to stay on schedule.

One of the screenwriters previously attached to Indiana Jones 5 has now shared an update. Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible’s David Koepp was the first writer to be confirmed to pen the script, before word came that Solo’s Jonathan Kasdan and then Tangled’s Dan Fogelman had taken over on separate occasions. In Koepp’s words:

Anyone else have whiplash? David Koepp confirmed to Den of Geek he’s back on the project. While it’s hopeful to hear the creative behind classics such as the Jurassic Park franchise, 2002’s Spider-Man, and Zathura (but also Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and 2017’s The Mummy remake) is back, it sounds like the movie has suffered major writer’s block as a whole.

Indiana Jones 5 seems to have cycled through a number of dead ideas, but Koepp thinks they have a good one this time! It’s also a bit concerning to hear news like this. It makes it sound a bit like the idea of bringing Indiana Jones back is high on the minds of the studio but there isn’t a distinct vision for the project.

It’s unclear if either or both Jonathan Kasdan and Dan Fogelman are still on board for the project with him or if David Koepp came back on board as the sole writer for Indiana Jones 5. Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford are confirmed to be returning to the franchise, in what would be a 13-year gap between 2008’s fourth installment.

Harrison Ford has made it clear that he is the only Indiana Jones, debunking rumors that he might pass the torch to a younger actor. In the past, stars such as Chris Pratt and Bradley Cooper have been said to be in talks for the role, but Indiana Jones 5 seems like it’s all about giving the 70-something legend another adventure. Will Karen Allen’s Marion join too?

First, Steven Spielberg is placing his focus on his remake of West Side Story, which is currently filming ahead of its December 18, 2020 release. The musical will star Angel Elgort (Baby Driver and The Goldfinch) as Tony and newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria. It was penned by his frequent collaborator Tony Kushner (Lincoln and Munich).

If Indiana Jones 5 stays on schedule, it should hit theaters on July 9, 2021.

While the news that Disney has greenlit Indiana Jones 5 was hardly surprising, it was still a delight to hear that both Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg will return to the franchise. But this excitement has been slightly tempered with the revelation that David Koepp has been hired to write the new installment to the Indy saga. For those of you that don’t know, David Koepp is a long-time Steven Spielberg collaborator whose screen credits include Indiana Jones and the Kindgom of the Crystal Skull. Worried yet?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was met with a rather mediocre reaction from both fans and critics alike when it was released back in 2009. However, to put all the blame for the film’s failure at the feet of David Koepp, whose participation in Indiana Jones 5 was confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter, would be rather foolish. Especially since it’s hard to know exactly what David Koepp wrote and didn’t write in Crystal Skull's script.

While David Koepp did indeed get a lone screenwriting credit for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the story was originaly created by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson. Plus, the likes of Jeb Stuart, Jeffrey Boam, Frank Darabont, and Jeff Nathanson each wrote different iterations of the script for Crystal Skull before producers finally approved Koepp’s version.

Also, while Indiana Jones and the Kingtom of the  Crystal Skull might not be the pinnacle of David Koepp’s career, the screenwriter’s rather sensational CV is proof that he knows what he’s doing when it comes to scribing a film. Especially when he’s worked with Steven Spielberg, as Koepp has written Jurassic Park, The Lord World: Jurassic Park, and War Of The Worlds for the iconic filmmaker, as well as other credits that include Panic Room, Spider-Man, Carlito’s Way, and Mission: Impossible.

Obviously, the man knows what he’s doing, even if you view Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as a misstep. While he’ll be more aware than anyone of the failings and reasons why Crystal Skull was met with relative indifference by audiences upon its release, and he’ll hopefully be hell-bent on avoiding these issues with Indiana Jones 5.

Plot details regarding Indiana Jones 5 are, unsurprisingly, currently being kept firmly under wraps. We’re not even really sure how long Disney has been developing the film, or if they always knew that Harrison Ford would be back, or if another protagonist will be brought in to help the 73-year-old shoulder the burden. 

Another big question is will George Lucas be involved in Indiana Jones 5? His name was withheld from Disney’s announcement for the film, and his relationship with the studio is still unclear following Disney’s decision not to use his ideas for what would eventually become Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The safe bet is that he won't have a hand in this either.

All of these details will be revealed over the next few months and years. For now, let’s just rejoice in the news that Indiana Jones 5 will be released on July 19, 2019. 

Chances are you haven't heard of Marcus Sakey's latest novel Brilliance. That's understandable since it won't be hitting bookshelves until July 16th. Despite that handicap, it's already scored a movie deal with Joe Roth and Palek Patel producing.

THR reports Legendary Pictures will be backing the adaptation, and has hired storied screenwriter David Koepp to draft it. Koepp seems a sharp choice considering he's penned such successful movie adaptations as Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. Understandably, Koepp is one of Hollywood's highest priced and hotly sought screenwriters, so it speaks well for Brilliance that Legendary has brought him on board. But what's the story all about? In a word: mutants. Except in the world Sakey paints they are known as "brilliants."

Brilliants are people who have a superhuman power. Each brilliants' power is different and distinctive. Maybe they can tell what your deepest secret is, or turn invisible. Perhaps they have a preternatural skill for interpreting the stock market or—as is the case with Brilliance's hero federal agent Nick Cooper—tracking down terrorists. Cooper's special skill proves crucial in the plot of this soon-to-hit novel, wherein a malevolent brilliant plans to use his super powers to incite civil war.

You might be thinking this sounds similar to the plot of the X-Men movies, and you wouldn't be wrong. Without having read Sakey's novel, it's hard to gage how much his world and storytelling owes to the X-Men, but as Chronicle showed last year, you don't need Marvel's brand to make an intriguing tale about super-powered people. And with early reports suggesting Brilliance could be the start of a trilogy, it's a good sign that Legendary wants to start off strong with a screenwriter like Koepp.

Nearly a year before the movie even came out the folks behind Universal's Snow White and the Huntsman were talking about the film as the first of a franchise. In an interview producer Joe Roth - who also worked on Disney's Alice in Wonderland - said that the idea was to have Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron return for a trilogy of movies as the Snow White, The Huntsman, and Ravenna, respectively. Now the movie has been released and the story hasn't changed.

According to Deadline, Universal has already hired David Koepp to write the script for a sequel and have entered talks with director Rupert Sanders to have him return for the second feature. The site says that Sanders is excited by the prospect of coming back, but isn't contractually obligated as the script was won at auction with the director part of the package deal. This means that if the studio wants him back bad enough he can make them pay. While the first film, which was only released in theaters one week ago, didn't do terribly well with critics, it had a surprisingly solid first weekend, pulling in $56 million over three days. Factoring in international markets, the movie has already made $118 million globally, but still needs to perform well in coming weeks to make back its $170 million budget. This week it sees a challenge in Ridley Scott's Prometheus and Madagascar 3.

David Koepp is known for being a go-to guy for blockbusters. In his career he's written scripts including Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, Panic Room, War of the Worlds, Angels and Demons and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. His latest directorial effort, Premium Rush, arrives in theaters this August.

Though he's never won, nor has he ever been nominated for and Oscar, David Koepp is one of the most powerful writers in Hollywood. Though he has his fair share of duds, he was still the man with the pen behind blockbusters like Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, Angels and Demons, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Needless to say, the guy's brain is tapped into exactly what mainstream audiences want. Hence why this news makes a whole lot of sense.

Deadline is reporting that Koepp has been hired to do rewrite the script for the next Jack Ryan adventure, which is currently untitled. Paramount had initially hired Steve Zaillian to work on the rewrite of the script, as he had written Clear and Present Danger, the most successful film in the franchise, but Zaillian changed his mind and dropped the project. In recent news, the project was delayed so that star Chris Pine could work on the Star Trek sequel and so that the script could be perfected. Koepp will be working off of the initial script written by Adam Cozad, which serves as an origin story for the character. Koepp will begin working on the project once Premium Rush, his newest film that he both wrote and directed, has been completed.

It's kind of nice that Paramount doesn't seem to be in any rush to get this project made, instead making sure that it's perfect before moving forward. Considering how much time has passed since the last Jack Ryan movie - The Sum of All Fears in 2002 - I don't even think hardcore fans are in too much of a rush to see the character return to the silver screen. It's like the saying goes: slow and steady wins the race.