David Koepp (born June 9, 1963) is an American screenwriter and director. Koepp is the fifth most successful screenwriter of all time in terms of domestic box office receipts with totals at just over $2 billion.
Career
As a writer, Koepp has worked on blockbuster Hollywood films such as Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible, and Spider-Man. He has a cameo as the man who is eaten by the T-Rex in San Diego in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, on which he worked as a writer and second unit director. Koepp was reportedly paid $4,000,000 for his Panic Room screenplay. He wrote the screenplay for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and co-wrote and directed 2008's Ghost Town starring Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear.
Koepp's work as a director has not had quite the same box office success. His films include Secret Window, Stir of Echoes, and The Trigger Effect.
Koepp has also worked in television, creating the 2002 series Hack starring David Morse.
In 2012, Koepp directed Premium Rush, which he co-wrote with John Kamps. In an August 2011 lawsuit, Joe Quirk, the author of the 1998 novel The Ultimate Rush, accused Koepp and the makers of Premium Rush of copyright infringement. On April 2, 2013, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg dismissed this case, finding that the two works were not substantially similar.
On February 17, 2013, Koepp received the WGA East's Ian McClellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement.
On July 10, 2013 Lionsgate was reported to have acquired the comedic crime novel The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery, written by Kyril Bonfiglioli. Koepp directed the film, titled Mortdecai, from a script by Eric Aronson with Johnny Depp in the lead role of Charlie Mortdecai and also featuring Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, and Paul Bettany. Koepp adapted the Marcus Sakey novel Brilliance, which will star Will Smith & Noomi Rapace
Personal life
Koepp was born in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, to a family therapist mother and Donald Koepp, who owns a billboard company. While attending Kettle Moraine High School in Wales, Wisconsin, he worked evenings and weekends at the McDonald's restaurant in Delafield. He received his bachelor's in film from UCLA. He has four children and a wife, Melissa.
Filmography
Feature films
Short films
Television
References
External links
- David Koepp at the Internet Movie Database