Just when fans had more or less made their peace with Westworld’s abrupt ending on HBO, Warner Bros. quietly dropped some news that sent the internet into a spin. A new Westworld feature film is in development at the studio, and the man writing it is David Koepp, the same screenwriter who once unleashed dinosaurs on an island for Steven Spielberg.
Koepp is going straight back to Crichton’s original 1973 film and a major filmmaker is reportedly circling the project, although no director has been announced yet. Not a lot of details are known for now, but knowing the names of the people attached in itself is a big thing.
The connection between Koepp and the Westworld source material is tighter than it might first appear. Both Jurassic Park and Westworld came from the imagination of Michael Crichton, and both revolve around the same essential nightmare: a technologically advanced playground where the safeguards fail and the guests start dying. Koepp has lived in that Crichton headspace before and he knows how to build the tension, get the audience comfortable, and then pull the floor out from under them.
His most recent work includes the 2025 spy thriller Black Bag and Jurassic World Rebirth, and he is now re-teaming with Steven Spielberg on the upcoming alien-invasion film Disclosure Day. This shows that he is booked and busy, and will most likely deliver a treat with Westworld.
More details about the Westworld film
The original 1973 film centered on an adult fantasy park where wealthy guests could roleplay Old West scenarios alongside convincingly humanlike robots. It’s a dystopian film and was way ahead of it’s curve.
A lesser-known follow-up called Futureworld was released and there was also a short-lived 1980 CBS series called Beyond Westworld before the franchise went quiet for decades but then HBO changed that with the prestige TV series, which aired from 2016 to 2022.
What’s interesting is that this reboot has nothing to do with the HBO show. No details have been revealed about whether the new movie will have any connection to the popular HBO series and Koepp is going back to Crichton’s original film as his source material, essentially treating everything Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy built over four seasons as a separate entity.
For now, all we can do is wait to see what Koepp comes up with, and if it does ny justice to fans of Westworld.
Edited by Nibir Konwar