Twenty-four hours ago, the amateur detectives of Reddit were convinced Steven Spielberg was set to reunite with his Jurassic Park and Disclosure Day screenwriter David Koepp on an updated version of Michael Critchton’s Westworld. News broke on Tuesday that the prolific screenwriter would tackle the sci-fi property for Warner Bros, and paired with Spielberg’s recent admission that he’s developing a Western, a fuse of speculation was lit.
But on a call with Polygon, Koepp shot down the rumor. While he was tight-lipped on exactly what to expect from his Westworld, the writer was willing to put the kibosh on speculation that Spielberg was involved. The timing “is a coincidence,” Koepp says.
It’s hard to blame the theorizers: Koepp returning to Westworld — and Spielberg potentially getting involved — makes a weird amount of sense when you remember that the original movie is basically proto-Jurassic Park. In the 1973 film, Crichton’s directorial debut, the author-turned-filmmaker was already imagining how the high-tech theme park dreams of rich people could devolve into nightmares. That original saw Yul Brynner as a robot gunslinger stalking tourists through an Old West fantasyland after the android staff glitches out in spectacular fashion. Koepp and Spielberg would make their own mark in this weirdly specific subgenre when they teamed with Crichton on Jurassic Park.
So Warner Bros. tapping Koepp for a new Westworld movie feels less like a random reboot assignment than the cinematic equivalent of calling the guy who fixed your plumbing the last time the basement flooded. There’s no director attached yet, which means the internet immediately started manifesting Spielberg into the conversation. After all, he really wants to make a Western.
After years of dreaming out loud about making a movie like his 1950s filmmaking heroes, it does seem that Spielberg will finally saddle up for a full-blown Western. During a conversation at SXSW earlier this year, the director said the genre has “eluded” him for decades and teased that he finally has a Western project in development. He promised horses, guns, and “no tropes” — that was it. Enough wiggle room to map a Koepp-penned Westworld to be the mystery project.
If Spielberg were to step into Westworld, he’d be taking on an IP that’s been explored heavily over the last decade. Warner’s TV department wrapped up a four-season run of HBO’s Westworld in 2022 (series creator Jonathan Nolan still hopes to give it a proper ending at some point, which looks more and more doubtful).
When asked what he might do with Westworld in the wake of the series, what drew him to the material, Koepp could only smirk and shoot down the Spielberg rumors. For now, we have to let him cook.
“I have some ideas […but] never talk about the ones you’re typing while you’re still typing them.”
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