ComingSoon.net spoke with screenwriter David Koepp earlier today for his new movie and fifth as a director, Premium Rush, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a New York bike messenger caught up in a chase through the city when he picks up a package that’s wanted by a number of unscrupulous individuals, particularly Michael Shannon.
While we’re still processing that video interview for later this week, we wanted to share with CS readers some of the things Koepp had to say about other upcoming projects and those he may or may not be involved with.
First and foremost on Koepp’s plate is the Untitled Jack Ryan Project, which has been in development for years under the aegis of producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura with Chris Pine starring and Kenneth Branagh directing and co-starring. In the last few weeks, Keira Knightley and Kevin Costner have both signed onto the movie as well as it’s gearing up to start shooting in a couple weeks.
Koepp spoke to us a bit about that film’s progress and how it will be different from other spy movies:
“I was just in London for a week working on what I hope is the nearly final version. We start shooting in two weeks. I’ve been on it for a year and a half and it’s gone really well. It has a really good cast, Ken’s been great, and I think it has a shot at being a really good spy movie with its own sort of niche. There’s a lot of spies out there. We’re the people in rooms talking with real human problems spy movie.”
One of the more interesting bits reported with the casting of Kevin Costner was that they’re planning on having him continue the role in a movie based on Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse and Koepp confirmed that Paramount is trying to set up a new franchise around Clancy’s novels similar to what Marvel Studios has been doing in creating their own movie universe.
“I’m not personally (involved) but others have that in mind. I guess they’re going with Without Remorse’ as well and seeing if they can build a Clancy Universe the way there’s a Marvel Universe, but that would require a lot of thought.”
There was a lot of talk last week about Universal Studios’ planned sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman and whether or not Kristen Stewart would be in it. Koepp’s name was mentioned in many of those stories since he had been hired to write that sequel, emphasis on the past tense.
“I’m not involved with that anymore,” he told us, confirming they had moved in a different direction. “There was a storyline I was pursuing that it turns out they don’t want to pursue, so we’re parting as friends. You have to have an idea and don’t take a job if you don’t have an idea and if you do have an idea, pursue it because ideas are currency. That’s what you’ve got. I had an idea I was excited about it and we pursued it for a while but then they wanted to go in a different direction.”
Koepp played a big part in the development of the Jurassic Park franchise over at Universal Pictures, having written the first two movies, and both producer Frank Marshall and director Steven Spielberg have been hinting over the last year that we’ll be seeing another movie based on that premise. We were curious whether Koepp may be involved.
“We did talk about it and if I thought I had a great idea, I’d sign up in a minute but I did the first two and two movies on one subject is a lot, cause it’s hard enough to do one movie on a subject. I did two and I just felt like I used up all my good ideas and if I had something really valuable to contribute, I’d love to, ’cause I love those guys and I had a great time doing those movies. I just felt like I never had very much to give to it.”
Look for the rest of our interview with David Koepp in the next couple days. Premium Rush opens nationwide this Friday, August 24.
(Photo Credit: Joe Kohen / Getty Images)
