Westworld is coming back to the big screen! Warner Bros. has tapped screenwriter David Koepp to write a new feature film adaptation of Westworld, the classic 1973 science fiction thriller written and directed by Michael Crichton. A major filmmaker is also reportedly circling the project, though no names have been confirmed yet (via Deadline).
For anyone who needs a quick refresher, the original Westworld followed wealthy vacationers at a futuristic theme park populated by lifelike robots, where guests could live out their wildest fantasies. Things went very badly when one of those robots malfunctioned and started hunting guests for real, a premise compelling enough to later inspire the hit HBO series of the same name.
Why David Koepp is exactly the right person to write this
If the name David Koepp sounds familiar, it should. He wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park in 1993, another Michael Crichton story about a theme park where the entertainment turns catastrophically dangerous. He has also written Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, War of the Worlds, and most recently, Jurassic World: Rebirth.
His next film, Disclosure Day, written for Steven Spielberg, hits theaters on June 12. The fact that Koepp is being brought back to the Crichton universe for a second time is not accidental. He understands how to balance big-concept sci-fi spectacle with genuine tension, which is exactly what Westworld demands.
What happened to the HBO show, and is this connected?
The Westworld TV series is also a critically praised HBO series that ran for four seasons from 2016 to 2022, created by Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan. It built a devoted fanbase and then got canceled before reaching a satisfying conclusion.
Warner Bros. then quietly removed it from its own streaming platform, which still stings for a lot of fans. There is no confirmation yet on whether this new film will connect to the TV series or start completely fresh, but the expectation is that the new Westworld movie will be a new chapter rather than a continuation.