Steven Spielberg Enlists His 'Jurassic Park' Writer for 'Indiana Jones 5' Screenplay
By Borys Kit
Just days after Disney revealed that a fifth Indiana Jones movie was in the works with director Steven Spielberg and actor Harrison Ford, the project has settled on a writer.
David Koepp, a longtime Spielberg confederate who wrote 1993’s Jurassic Park, has been tapped to pen the script for the new adventure, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
This won’t be Koepp’s first swing on the jungle vine, as the screenwriter, who also wrote Spielberg movies The Lost World: Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds, co-wrote the previous Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
More: ‘Indiana Jones 5’: Making Sense of the Adventuring Archaeologist’s Return
Plot details are being kept secure in the Well of the Souls. It is unclear if Koepp is working off any existing treatment or story. Crystal Skull, for example, has treatments written by Indiana Jones co-creator George Lucas and the story credit went to Lucas and Jeff Nathanson, the latter who wrote several drafts.
Lucas’ involvement in the new movie project remains unclear. He was not mentioned in Disney’s announcement this week and if the new Star Wars movies are any indication, he will not be involved. (He was vocal in saying Force Awakens did not use his ideas.)
Also unclear is how the script will address the age factor of Ford, who will be 77 years old when the new movie is released on July 19, 2019. The script, for example, could call for the story to be a flashback set in a classic Jones time period (the 1930s) bookended by Jones in later decades.
Koepp is one of Hollywood’s A-list writers, with movies such as the first Mission: Impossible and the first Spider-Man (Sam Raimi’s 2002 version that starred Tobey Maguire) as his credits.
More recently, he wrote Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Inferno, Sony’s upcoming adaptation of the Dan Brown novel that stars Tom Hanks. Koepp has also directed several movies.
He is repped by CAA and Myman Greenspan.
