#296. David Koepp!
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This is a solo bonus episode: with JVL and Mike Warren both out of town, Sonny sits alone in his home office and spends about fifteen minutes riffing on the career of screenwriter David Koepp, the recent collaborator of Steven Soderbergh on Kimi, Presence, and Black Bag. Sonny argues Koepp's superpower is "parceling out information" so a twist lands right before the audience consciously figures it out, and he traces that skill from a childhood favorite, Toy Soldiers, through Koepp's blockbuster-writer era (Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) to his recent run of leaner Soderbergh pictures. He singles out Presence and Black Bag as the two best movies he's seen so far this year (albeit in a weak year), praises Kimi's efficient, single-apartment "audio thriller" construction, and closes with an ode to Death Becomes Her as an underrated showcase for Koepp's dialogue and for Bruce Willis's comic chops, while conceding Koepp's credit on the messy, six-writer Mummy (2017) as an exception. There's no panel banter or opening check-in this week since it's just Sonny; he promises the full team will be back next episode.
From the show notes
He wrote Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, and a bunch of other stuff, most recently teaming up with Steven Soderbergh for Kimi, Presence, and Black Bag. Good writer, I like his movies. The whole team should be back next week!
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00Hey, everybody. It's Sonny. Just as a reminder, there's no main episode this week because JBL and Michael Warren are gallivanting all around our great country. So I am sitting here in my office in the house trying to figure out what to do to bring you guys joy. And I could go through all of the great Star Wars Unlimited cards that I opened with my kids the other day. No, I'm not going to do that. I wouldn't blame you for quitting the show if I did that. I want to take like 15 minutes here just to highlight one screenwriter's credit. You know, screenwriters don't get enough credit, right? Screenwriters, they take all the blame when the movie's bad. Oh, bad script. It's got second act problems. And nobody ever talks about them when they do well. But I want to highlight one of my favorite screenwriters, or at least the screenwriter who has made the highest percentage of movies that I really enjoy. And he's had a very interesting and varied career. His name is David Koepp. Now, David Koepp, you will know the movies that David Koepp has made. I mean, this guy made Jurassic Park. He wrote Mission Impossible, the story for Mission Impossible. He wrote Panic Room, Spider-Man. All sorts of movies. War of the Worlds. He's worked with Steven Spielberg a lot. More recently, he's worked with Steven Soderbergh. And the reason I had kind of wanted to talk about him was because he has produced three movies in the last four years. He has written three movies in the last four years made by Steven Soderbergh. Kimmy, Presence, and Black Bag. Presence and Black Bag both came out earlier this year. And they are actually the two best movies I've seen so far this year. It's a weak year so far. It's a soft year. So I wouldn't say for sure that those two movies are going to make my top ten. But they might. You never know. Maybe I'll put them both at number ten and do a little cheat. Anyway, David Koepp has had this really fascinating and varied career. And I just wanted to highlight it for a second because I think it's important to see how some of this big budget stuff can be improved by just having a decent writer on hand. So, you know, you and I'm not going to get into I'm not going to break down various drafts of scripts, whatever. But I do think it's I just think it's worth worth taking a second to think about this guy's career. So the first movie that he he made that he wrote that I that I saw repeatedly as a child is a little movie called Toy Soldiers. You've seen if you had HBO in the in the early 1990s, you've seen Toy Soldiers came out in 91 star Sean Astin. And Will Wheaton, amongst others, as kids at a boys boarding school for, you know, wayward youth. They're rich. They're rich folks send them there. And this school gets taken over by drug runners from Colombia. I think maybe it was Mexico. I don't remember. Anyway, some some South or Central American country comes and takes this place over. And it is it is not a great movie. I would not describe Toy Soldiers as a great movie. But it is it is a fun movie and it hits at a very key idea of childhood of youth, which is this moment where you think you can take on the world if you're just given the chance. And the kids can't. The funniest thing about this movie, I swear to God, I was thinking about this the other day and I looked it up and I found the gif. The best thing about this movie, the most memorable thing about this movie is that, Will Wheaton, of course, Wesley Crusher from Star Trek The Next Generation, most famous for everyone yelling, shut up, Wesley, at Will Wheaton every time he was annoying on Twitter till he quit the website. But there's this very funny moment where Will Wheaton, who has like this dangly earring, he's like the kid of some mobster, grabs a machine gun and he starts trying to take out one of these guys. And he immediately, the kick on the gun is so hard, it like kicks up in the air. He hits zero people. He hits zero people. And again, this is like, it's a perfect little thing where in a in a lesser movie, maybe he makes a real run for he makes a real run for freedom or he takes out more of the bad guys. I think he might hit like he might wing like one of them. And instead, he dies. He dies in comical fashion. And you need him to die in comical fashion because that's what sets the last act of the movie in motion. Forces the feds to have to take out the the the gangsters who have taken this, the drug runners who have taken over this this prison. Long story short, it doesn't matter. Point is, he they his death is required for the script. And it's so funny. A screenwriter I follow on Twitter, Matt McKenna, the other day said something to the effect of screenwriting is like architecture for information. You have to figure out where to put information in a story. You got to figure out. Where to parcel it out and where to place it. So the whole thing will stand up on its own. He said it better than this. You should follow him on Twitter, Matt McKenna. But the but the point of this is the point of this is that this is, you know, one thing that he that David Koepp is very good at doing is parceling out information. I'm going to skip ahead here to the movie that came out earlier this year. Presence Presence is Presence is a movie. So the basics, the basic idea. Is that it's a ghost story. It's a it's a it's set in a haunted house. Essentially, a family moves into a haunted house and you have to figure out why it's haunted, what the ghost wants, et cetera, et cetera. It's only about eighty five minutes long, something like that. And it is one of these movies where there is a mild twist at the end. But the twist becomes very apparent about forty five seconds before it happens, about forty five seconds before it happens. You put it all together without the aid of flashbacks or. Or voiceovers repeating dialogue, if you're paying attention to the movie, it makes one hundred percent precisely what happens and you will absolutely figure it out right before. And I remember reading something. I forget who said this. I forget who said this. But there was a there was this there was this line that went something like, you know, viewers sometimes say that a screenwriter has failed if you figure out the twist right before it happens. And there is a you know, you you have failed if they figure it out 10 minutes into the movie and you have failed if they if it becomes so deadly or it's if it's not obvious enough that you have to explain it five minutes before the movie. You have to do the flashbacks and the voiceovers, et cetera, et cetera. But the perfect the perfect. Secret reveal the perfect rug pull at the end of a movie is one that makes perfect sense about 30 seconds. Before it happens, about 30 seconds before it happens. This is one reason why the usual suspects is kind of a cheat. There's no way to piece together that Kaiser Soze is is is what's his name? The the the kitty toucher. I don't think I'm going to get sued if I say that. I don't know. Maybe I'll edit that out. No, the Spacey, Kevin Spacey, the the the issue with the usual suspects, which is a fun movie and a fine movie. I enjoy watching it and it has a it has a great twist ending. Whatever. But there's no way to there's no way to figure out precisely what is happening. I'm sorry. I guess, you know, I know they have that little Bryan Singer put in that little shot at the beginning where he's scanning the board. But I don't I don't think that I don't think that counts. I don't think that really that that counts as, you know, being being a good reveal. And the reason that twist in presence worked is because David kept very discreetly and distinctly parcels out the information. He gives you a little piece here, a little piece here, a little piece here. And by the time you get to the final moment where Lucy Liu figures out the ghost, why which ghost has been in the house and why it's it's pretty. It's not just a great little twist. It's also pretty emotionally powerful. It's it's a it is a it is very much a movie about parents and children. That sort of stuff always always gets me now. But like that, it's a very it's a very effective. Very powerful move. And again, this is, you know, this is what the screenwriter does. Now, the funny thing about Kep's career is that he's had this he's had this great run of small movies. But for a while in like the 1990s to the to the early aughts, he was the biggest writer of blockbuster movies in the game. I mean, this guy made Jurassic Park, Carlito's Way, not not a huge blockbuster, but, you know, pretty big by Brian De Palma standards. Mission Impossible, Jurassic. Park 2, Snake Eyes, Panic Room, Spider-Man. He writes the first Spider-Man movie when and basically that means he also wrote the second Spider-Man movie because the first Spider-Man movie and the second Spider-Man movie are very similar in structure. They're really you just watch them back to back. The second Spider-Man movie is a little bit better, but the first Spider-Man movie, you know, sets all the beats for everything that happens. And then he goes back to working with Steven Spielberg for a while. It makes War of the Worlds, which is which is pretty great. And Indiana Jones and the King. The Crystal Skull, which is not. But, you know, it's that's it's not the worst. It's not the worst movie ever made. I, I, I'm really interested in in in this part of his career because I'm sure he made an insane amount of money writing these movies and probably script doctoring things when he wasn't writing movies. I would be I would be very curious to know what his lifetime take in the industry is. But he but but being able. To do both of those things, the big budget, big scale movies and the smaller budget, small, smaller scale movies that would that would kind of come in between and come later is no, no mean feat. I mean, I like there are two different skill sets in a way there. They really are two different skill sets. There's there is the there is the IP management aspect of Spider-Man and Jurassic Park and all those things. Right. Indiana Jones. And then there is the storytelling aspect. And these two things are connected, but not necessarily the same. And then when you when you're working at that scale, you don't have to think about things like budgets or shooting days or locations. Right. He you it's just it's just a different thing from making a movie like Kimmy. So he makes Kimmy. He writes Kimmy for Steven Soderbergh. That movie. Comes out in twenty twenty two. It's very much influenced by the pandemic. I think it was it was shot during the pandemic. It was shot, you know, either during or right after the worst of it, but probably during it was for HBO Max. It comes out on the service and it is it is an incredibly efficient movie. I don't know what I don't know what it costs. I have no idea what it what it costs. But the whole thing was shot essentially not the whole thing. Large portion of it about 90 minutes again. About 60 minutes of those take place almost entirely in the title character Kimmy's apartment. It's a rear window sort of thing. She it's a rear window slash the conversation slash blowout sort of thing where she is analyzing audio from her from her desk and trying to figure out if a murder has taken place and if so, who she can who she can tell about it. And that that sort of writing is is again, it's it's not easy. It's not easy to visually dramatize something like working on audio software. Brian De Palma did it and blow out and, you know, Antonioni did it with photo equipment and blow up, which blow out was at least kind of kind of based on. And you and you do see it in something like the conversation. The conversation is a fascinating movie because that is a movie that works on an auditory level more so than a visual level. Though, obviously, the visual and the auditory work together that that that the sound of that scape, that movie, the soundscape of that movie was put together by Walter Murch, who worked with who worked very closely with Francis Ford Coppola on on on a bunch of movies. Godfather Apocalypse now would go on to direct some stuff. He directed Return to Oz, which we talked about a couple a couple of months back. And he but that but again. The the idea here of the the visual and the the audio working together in synchronicity, that's that's that's a hard thing. That's a hard thing to write, I think. And it's a hard thing to to visually portray. And I think I think Soderbergh does a pretty good job of it. You know, I don't know. Maybe maybe I'm wrong, but I like that movie a lot. I like all of these kind of smaller Soderbergh movies presence and Black Bag, which is the most recent of the David Koepp. Steven Soderbergh collaborations. Black Bag is this perfect little date movie. It is not a big action movie. It is a spy thriller where all of there is there's maybe a boy. Let's see. I think there's one gunshot and one missile. I think I think that's I think that's the extent of the violence in this movie. So it's not a James Bond, you know, spy thriller shootout, shoot him up sort of thing. It's not like Ronan where you've got. You know, twists and turns and car chases and shootouts in the countryside of France. Those those movies are also great and have their place. But this is this is a more intimate thing. It is about the relationship between two spies who have to keep their professional work secret from each other in addition to everybody else. And what happens when when when one of the. Partners suspects the other of having committed some sort of terrible crime. And so the setup here is pretty simple. The setup of Black Bag is pretty simple. Michael Fassbender is told that there are five people in his agency who have access to some secret that is going to be disseminated, could kill lots of people. And one of the five is his wife. So he sets up a dinner party with him and his wife and then the four other people who just so happen to be couples. Very, very fortunate. And the. The first 30 minutes of this movie, I think the first 30 minutes, almost almost entirely the first 30 minutes are this dinner party. It's just this dinner party, which which is, again, parceling out information. It's giving us little pieces of information about the characters and what they think and what they do and what they've been doing. That is incredibly important for later on when this group of five spoiler, I guess, comes back to. It's a house for one last meeting slash event. I won't I won't say any more than that because you should go see it. It's in theaters again. It's only like people talk about, you know, we got to get sitter. We got to get a sitter to go to the theaters. And I understand that. That's a that's that's a hassle. That's a hassle. But the the nice thing about Black Bag is that it is only 90 minutes long. So you only have to get the sitter for like two hours, really, too. It's great. That's a cheap that's a cheap. You know, you go you go to a draft house or something. You eat there, you eat, you watch a movie, you come back. The sitter's only been there for two hours, only cost you like 30 bucks. I don't know. What do you guys pay sitters? Fifteen fifteen dollars an hour, twenty dollars. What is what's the going rate on a sitter these days? I feel like we have we have such a variable range in my neighborhood. I don't I never know what how much cash I need to have on me at the when I get home. Anyway, sorry. Sorry for the digression there. Anyway, the the point. Here is is just that you should go see this movie in a theater. It's the sort of movie you should see in a theater, not because it is a big, loud movie. You need the big screen and the immersive speakers. It's a it's the sort of movie you should see in a theater because you need to be paying attention to the screen. It is not a second screen movie. This is not a movie that Steven Soderbergh could have made for Netflix as he was doing for a while. He made a bunch of movies for Netflix. But this is not a movie that you can make for Netflix because. The whole thing about Netflix is like our movies need to make sense to somebody who is not watching the movie, but watching like kind of listening to the movie while looking at their phone and scrolling through Instagram. They call these second screen movies. This is not a second screen movie. This is a first screen movie. You need to be paying attention to the things that happen on the screen while they happen. You need to be listening to who says what and when and where everybody is, because if you don't, it is a little bit. It's a little bit twisty and turning. You got to follow some plot points here, folks. You know, it's not just it's not just going to be spoon fed to you, but David Koepp could spoon feed it to you. He does that. I mean, I like Jurassic Park again. Jurassic Park, great movie, but that's a movie that does a lot of spoon feeding. That's a lot of like, all right, here's how cloning works. Here's how raptors work. Here's there's there's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. And that's fine. That's fine. I mean, I love Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park, great movie. But the you know, it is it is what it is. And this is this is not a movie like that. It's a movie you got to go see in theaters. So anyway, I am I'm going to wrap things up here. I'm not saying every David Koepp movie is a winner. He did write the Tom Cruise, The Mummy, for instance. God only knows which version of the screenplay he did on that. I think there's a whole I'm actually going to pull up the IMDb because there's a lot of credited writers on this one. See, writing credits for The Mummy 2017, David Koepp screenplay by and not Ampersand and Christopher McQuarrie and Dylan Cussman. And then there's a whole nother. All right. And then there's the screen story credits. You have John Spates gets a screen story credit credit and Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet get a shared screen story. So, again, there are six credited writers on this thing. Three of them get story. Three of them get screenplay credits. That's that's kind of wild. I mean, I you know, I'm not I'm not saying that that many cooks in the kitchen is a bad thing, but it's rarely a good thing. And the mummy kind of is a perfect example of why. That movie is a that movie is a mess. But, you know, look again, he's not I'm not saying they're all they're all winners. They're not all, you know, the best movies you've ever seen. But he's made a lot of very good ones, including. This is what I'm going to leave you with. Death Becomes Her. Death Becomes Her. Again, I like is a movie I didn't entirely appreciate as a kid. Death Becomes Her is much funnier than it should be. Like Robert Zemeckis was doing interesting things in the in his post Back to the Future pre playing with CGI monster mocap things for the rest of his career. And this is this is one of them where there's a lot of really interesting. Special effects work. It's very funny. Bruce Willis is doing comedy. Bruce Willis, like, is an underrated comedic talent. You know, he got kind of pigeonholed as big action guy in the in the back half of his career for good reason, because he was a great big action guy. But the but he is so funny in this. And of course, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn are great. But again, this is this is a movie where you dole out little pieces of information. You keep going. And and and it culminates. It culminates in this really just wonderful comic moment at the end of the film where Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep meet their fate and are kind of bitching about it. And you're like, well, yeah, but you you you brought this on yourselves. You brought this on yourselves. You had this coming and you see it coming the whole time. It's kind of a classic, classically structured Greek tragedy, the fatal, fatal flaw of whatever. I don't know. Fatal flaw of hubris isn't right. Self-obsession. I don't know what the Greeks would call that. Someone is where where are my classics people at? Anyway, David Koepp, good screenwriter. Makes good movies. You can watch Presence and Kimmy at home now and you should go to theaters and go watch Black Bag. It's a it's a it's a fun. It's perfect little date movie. Think you'll like it.
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