Filmmaker David Koepp has been out doing promotional rounds for Universal and Blumhouse’s new horror feature “You Should Have Left” which will premiere on VOD next week.
Koepp of course is most famous for being Hollywood’s go to script doctor and blockbuster screen writer with his works including “Jurassic Park,” “Spider-Man,” “Mission: Impossible” and many more.
He also wrote “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and was at work on that franchise’s fifth entry, but he confirmed to Collider recently he’s no longer attached to that film. When Spielberg handed the director chair over to James Mangold (“Logan,” “Ford v. Ferrari”), Koepp also walked away to allow Mangold to do his own take:
“When James Mangold came in … he deserves a chance to take his shot at it. I’d done several versions with Steven. And when Steven left, it seemed like the right time to let Jim have his own take on it and have his own person or himself write it.”
Whether Mangold will use any of Koepp’s script elements is unclear, though the series has famously used bits and pieces from the assorted screenplay drafts created over the years – Koepp’s “Crystal Skull” using elements of Frank Darabont’s “Indiana Jones and the City of Gods” script.
Koepp was also attached to “Bride of Frankenstein,” one of the film’s in Universal’s now aborted Dark Universe initiative. That version had Angelina Jolie rumored for the title role with Bill Condon attached to helm from Koepp’s script. The project seemed to collapse three years ago, but Koepp has been quietly reviving it:
“That was one thing I did during quarantine – I brought back Bride of Frankenstein into a place where I kind of always wanted it to be. Universal was very gracious to let me try again. Because they had geared up and shut down famously in the Dark Universe fiasco. Well, not fiasco, but disappointment.
So I have a version now and they have a version that we all really like. I think they’re talking to directors now. It’s not the great big, $150 million extravaganza with giant movie stars. It’s not as scaled down as Invisible Man but much more reasonable, doable thing, with, I think, a really cool idea and it”s all present day.”
Koepp’s “You Should Have Left,” a haunted house thriller with Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried, hits PVOD on Friday.
