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In 1999 “The Sixth Sense,” a spooky-ooky movie involving ghosts and a freaky little kid who sees them, opened theatrically and quickly became a cultural sensation and a box office juggernaut. It would end up earning $672 million at the global box office and garnering six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Its signature line of dialogue (“I see dead people”) would enter the lexicon, endlessly quoted, parodied and spoofed.

But there was another, very similar, equally wonderful movie that opened in 1999 that didn’t get nearly the attention that it deserved – or, indeed, the attention that was bestowed upon “The Sixth Sense.”

That movie was writer/director David Koepp’s “Stir of Echoes,” which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary and as such has a brand-new 4K Uhd Blu-ray disc out (available exclusively through Amazon). And, incredibly, one of the new special features details how Koepp was...

Close on the heels of his performances in the slasher Scream VI and the hit romantic comedy Anyone but You, Dermot Mulroney has just wrapped production on a new horror thriller called Dead and Breakfast. This one is coming our way from the Las Vegas-based production companies Beno Films and Al Bravo Films, but filming took place in Little Rock, Arkansas. Deadline got their hands on a pair of first-look images from Dead and Breakfast, and you can check those out in this article.

Written and directed by Loppo Jp Martinez, Dead and Breakfast follows five petty criminals who rob a pawn shop in Kansas City. Still, on their drive back to Little Rock, an unexpected engine failure forces them to stay in a bed & breakfast in the middle of nowhere where their plan quickly derails into a bloodbath. So no, in case you were wondering, this Dead and Breakfast[/link]...

When you think of the theatrical summer behemoth that is Jurassic Park, the very last thing you think of is its script by David Koepp. The Steven Spielberg-led film about dinosaurs brought back to life with horrific consequences was a massive hit for Universal Pictures.

The film cleverly blended adventure and action with horror and sci-fi in an unstoppable vehicle that completely changed the way we saw movies in 1993. Special effects were no longer a beautiful experiment. They were part of the magic.

And again, the script behind Jurassic Park is often the least thing people remember about it, which is very unfortunate. The screenplay, based on Michael Crichton's novel of the same name, was helmed by David Koepp, a fascinating case of a writer capable of writing blockbuster films who seldom gets mentioned when films become successful.

Jurassic Park PG-13 Where to Watch

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Release DateJune 11, 1993DirectorSteven SpielbergCastSam Neill,...

Spoilers are ahead for Fallout season 1.

Like in Fallout, Kyle MacLachlan's character in The Trigger Effect faces the chaos of an apocalyptic scenario. Both projects explore humanity's brutal efforts to survive when pushed to their limits in a post-apocalyptic world. Hank MacLean's choices in Fallout serve as a reflection of what individuals are willing to do for self-preservation.

While Twin Peaks: The Return might have prepared Kyle MacLachlan for his duplicitous Fallout character, another one of the actor's projects actually has more in common with Amazon Prime Video's post-apocalyptic drama. Known for playing the plucky-yet-skilled Special Agent Dale Cooper in David Lynch's Twin Peaks franchise, MacLachlan is no stranger to turning Americana on its head. Like Twin Peaks, Fallout hides a darkness beneath its wholesome facade. No character exemplifies this more than MacLachlan's Hank MacLean, the Overseer of Vault 33 and Lucy (Ella Purnell) and Norm's (Moiss Arias) father.

Anyone who still needs convincing that we live in a fractured world may be startled by the futuristic nightmare drama Leave the World Behind, which had its world premiere at AFI Fest. Others might find something a bit stale in its portrait of racial suspicion and environmental catastrophe. Fine performances help to bolster a problematic picture written and directed by Sam Esmail, adapted from Rumaan Alam’s best-selling novel. The film will take its bow via Netflix in December, the streamer’s second release this year (after Rustin) that counts Barack and Michelle Obama among its executive producers.

The story starts with a New York family (Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and, as their teenage children, Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans) leaving the city for a vacation in a Long Island rental home that advertised with the line “Leave the world behind.” The house and the grounds are indeed enticing, and...

David Koepp knows suspense.

The prolific screenwriter has written edge-of-your-seat thrillers for Brian De Palma, David Fincher (“Panic Room”), and Ron Howard. He’s also directed a few for himself, including 1996’s excellent “The Trigger Effect.”

A new David Koepp thriller is a very big deal indeed, especially if it’s directed by the legendary Steven Soderbergh. And that’s what we’ve got in “Kimi,” a paranoid techno-thriller debuting Thursday on HBO Max.

“Kimi” stars Zoë Kravitz as Angela, an agoraphobic young woman in Seattle working for a start-up introducing a new digital assistant named Kimi. Her job is to scrub through janky audio recordings; one day she comes across a recording that rattles her to the core – did a woman seemingly record her violent attack? Did Angela become the ear-witness to a murder?

TheWrap talked with Koepp about what it was like working with Soderbergh, how the pandemic...

David Koepp is one of the most prolific and successful writers in Hollywood history, having penned a huge list of box office hits, including Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, Panic Room and War of the Worlds. As a writer-director, Koepp chooses smaller, but equally thrilling movies like The Trigger Effect, Stir of Echoes, Secret Window and Ghost Town. His latest film as a writer-director, You Should Have Left, is a spooky haunted house thriller starring his Stir of Echoes leading man Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried as a couple who rents an ultra-modern, very spooky house …...

The first words we hear Kevin Bacon say in “You Should Have Left” are “goddamn nightmares,” a phrase his character spits out after waking from some feverish visions that include long dark hallways, spooky music and a sinister, bedraggled guy threatening a little girl.

There are lots more of those nightmares to come over the next 90 minutes in this psychological thriller – oh, let’s scratch that and call it a horror movie – from writer-director David Koepp, best known as the screenwriter of “Jurassic Park,” “Mission: Impossible,” “War of the Worlds” and “Spider-Man.” Working from a novella by German writer Daniel Kehlmann, Koepp has joined forces with Blumhouse Productions to make a film that’s much closer in scale to his previous directing jobs like “Stir of Echoes” and “The Trigger Effect” than to his blockbuster screenplays, and not nearly as gripping as Blumhouse’s last spin on horror, “The Invisible Man.

Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions have opted to launch the supernatural thriller “You Should Have Left” on premium video-on-demand instead of its planned debut in theaters.

The movie, starring Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried, will be available to rent starting June 19. Along with the release shakeup, the studio also unveiled a new trailer.

It’s the latest revamp in Universal’s schedule in the wake of mass shuttering of multiplexes due to the coronavirus pandemic. Though movie theaters in some states have started to reopen, the majority of cinema chains are still closed.

Judd Apatow’s “The King of Staten Island,” a comedy starring Pete Davidson, will also debut on digital rental services on June 12 in lieu of a traditional theatrical rollout. In April, the studio dropped “Trolls World Tour” on video-on-demand and in drive-ins. Meanwhile, “Fast and Furious” installment “F9,” the next “Minions” sequel, and “Sing 2” were all...

Amanda Seyfried has signed on to portray the spouse of Kevin Bacon’s character in “You Should Have Left,” a supernatural thriller from Jason Blum.

David Koepp will direct from his own script for Blumhouse Productions. The company is planning to start shooting later this year.

The project is based on Daniel Kehlmann’s 2017 novel, which centers on a screenwriter in a remote house in the Alps working on a sequel to his hit film along with his younger wife and a six-year-old. The writer begins to lose his bearings thanks to unexplained occurrences.

Bacon brought the project to Koepp and the duo optioned it to Blumhouse earlier this year. Bacon and Koepp previously collaborated on the 1999 supernatural thriller “Stir of Echoes.” Koepp has writing credits on “Jurassic Park” and “Spider-Man” and directing credits on “The Trigger Effect” and “Secret Window.”

Seyfried will be seen next be seen in Universal’s “Mamma Mia!

We’re back with another round-up of news, this time focusing on the return of David Lynch’s seminal series, Twin Peaks, the upcoming Game of Thrones IMAX screenings, and when you can expect to see The Babadook haunt home media.

With Twin Peaks returning to television in nine all-new episodes in 2016 (25 years after it last aired), fans have been wondering which actors will come back. Series co-writer/director David Lynch and Showtime answered one big question by revealing that Kyle MacLachlan will once again step into the shoes of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. Lynch even tweeted a new photo of MacLachlan as Agent Cooper holding a “damn fine” cup of coffee. Here’s the official press release (via Collider) and photo (via David Lynch):

Press Release – “Golden Globe winner and Emmy® Award nominee Kyle MacLachlan will reprise his role as FBI Agent Dale Cooper when the critically-acclaimed,...

Each month, we turn our spotlight onto the unsung artists behind the biggest new movie releases. This month: David Koepp, co-writer of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.

A graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, David Koepp has a name that is familiar to moviegoers around the world, although they may not realize why. It’s one of those names that crops up regularly, on all kinds of film posters and credit rolls, in all sorts of capacities. He has worked as a Producer, Actor, Second Unit Director, Assistant Director, Director, Writer and even Songwriter, on an epic roster of films that would make even Spielberg’s toes curl – though he had a hand in some of them.

While his resume shows him to be a man of many talents, it is screenwriting that has made his name internationally recognizable. David Koepp is one of the most prolific screenwriters in Hollywood,...

It doesn't look like Universal has any doubts that "Snow White and the Huntsman" is going to be one of the biggest hits of the summer.

Despite the fact that the film won't be hitting theaters for another month, the studio is wasting no time in planning a sequel to the dark fairy tale — and it's looking to recruit one of the most prolific (and expensive) screenwriters in Hollywood to tell the tale, according to Deadline.

David Koepp has built a reputation as a go-to blockbuster writer, having penned films for Steven Spielberg ("Jurassic Park," "The Lost World," "War of the Worlds," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"), Sam Raimi ("Spider-Man"), David Fincher ("Panic Room"), Brian De Palma ("Carlito's Way," "Mission: Impossible," "Snake Eyes"), Ron Howard ("Angels & Demons") and Barry Sonnenfeld (this summer's "Men in Black III").

Koepp's work as a director tends to be a little...

It takes a special breed to be a bike courier. Part gear head, part adrenaline junkie and ready to throw themselves into daily mess of gridlock, getting a package from A to B on two wheels isn't a task for just anybody. While we've seen more than enough thrillers on four wheels, "Premium Rush" has to be one of the first in which a bicycle is the preferred method of transport. And in the first trailer for the Joseph Gordon-Levitt vehicle, it looks like it's aiming strictly for B-movie thrills. Directed by writer/director David Koepp ("The Trigger Effect," "Secret Window")…...

David Koepp, who's probably better known as a screenwriter than a director, has set up his next directing project at Sony. Koepp will helm Premium Rush, a bike messenger action movie, being produced by Gavin Polone (who last worked on Zombieland). The story centers on a New York bike messenger who picks up an envelope at Columbia University to deliver. A dirty cop is desperate to get his hands on the envelope as well, and chases the bike messenger throughout the city. The screenplay was written by Koepp and his frequent collaborator John Kamps. I've got to admit, this sounds like it'll be awesome, I'm already excited to see it. Koepp last directed Ghost Town as well as Secret Window, Stir of Echoes, and The Trigger Effect before that. His most recent screenplays include Angels & Demons, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Zathura, and War of the...

Big time screenwriter and occasional director David Koepp has signed up for another directing project. Koepp previously worked on the screenplays for the very high-profile films Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, Angels & Demons, Jurassic Park, and Mission: Impossible. Yet, the films he chooses to direct always seem to go relatively unnoticed, despite being quality films. Koepp directed the very entertaining ghost story/murder mystery Stir Of Echoes, as well as The Trigger Effect, and also the funny and surprisingly endearing Ghost Town starring Ricky Gervais.

Read more on David Koepp feeling a Rush…...

Here’s an interesting thing: David Koepp, one of the most powerful screenwriters in Hollywood, is at last going to direct the kind of movie that he bangs out on a regular basis for his regular boss, Steven Spielberg.Which is to say that Koepp has signed to direct Premium Rush, sadly not a biopic about the greatest striker in Liverpool’s history but instead a high-concept, big-budget thriller about a bike messenger who picks up a parcel so important that he’s chased through a city by a corrupt cop, who’s desperate to get his mitts on it.So far, Koepp’s four directorial outings have all been relatively low-key affairs that have been based, to some degree or other, on a supernatural/fantastical premise, from Ghost Town to Stir Of Echoes to Secret Window to The Trigger Effect.Premium Rush, from the deliberately ridiculous title to the plot,...

It looks like Paramount plans to take advantage of the impending fame of their Star Trek star Chris Pine, finally unleashing the delayed horror flick Carriers from their vault on September 4, 2009. The movie, which seems like an interesting blend of 28 Days Later and The Trigger Effect, also stars Piper Perabo and Lou Taylor Pucci. Check the trailer below. The synopsis: A deadly virus has spread across the globe. Contagion is everywhere, no one is safe, and no one can be trusted. Four young...

The last time we had a movie protest, I thought that those boycotting Tropic Thunder had a workable point. Yes, there is humor in that movie that emanates from a mentally retarded character.

The function of the Simple Jack character was not to laugh at him for his deficiencies but rather to laugh knowingly at Hollywood and movie stars for their often sad and regrettable interpretations of the mentally disabled in film. Granted, Simple Jack was a lot funnier in the movie within the movie than it was as a gratuitous third act add-on, but I could understand why it would be offensive to groups that are charged with protecting the interests of the mentally disabled.

I didn't think it was a reason to not see the movie, but if someone else chose not to, that would have been fine.

However, the latest movie protest is just laughable. Indefensible. Marc...

Ghost Town

Starring Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, and Tea Leoni

Directed by David Koepp

Rated PG-13

Your opinion of Ghost Town will depend almost completely on your opinion of Ricky Gervais. If you like his abrasive, uncomfortable comedic style - as witnessed in the original version of The Office on the BBC or in Extras - then you'll probably enjoy this movie very much. It has laughs that don't involve Gervais, though not many, but there's enough going on here that you can enjoy it even more if you like the leading man.

However, Gervais is polarizing. Some people just can't stand his style. Those people probably wouldn't look Ghost Town, although why they'd see it in the first place if they don't like Gervais is a mystery.

The story is silly, but it works: Bertram Pincus, DDS (Gervais) is a terrible human being. He hates people and refuses to...