At first, Koepp assumed the director was just after some feedback, writer to writer. Eventually, though, Spielberg asked him, \u201cDo you want to do it?\u201d<\/p>\n
The result, Disclosure Day,<\/em> is Koepp\u2019s seventh script for which Spielberg served as either director or producer. It\u2019s a collaboration that stretches back to Jurassic Park<\/em>\u2014Koepp\u2019s genetic reengineering of the Michael Crichton novel that shot his screenwriting career into the stratosphere\u2014and includes two Indiana Jones<\/em> movies as well as War of the Worlds.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a good collaborator because he listens as much to me as I do to him,\u201d Spielberg said in an email. Koepp is willing, said Spielberg, to rework a script \u201cincluding and often through principal photography.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, Koepp wrote 42 drafts for Disclosure Day<\/em>\u2014a personal record. \u201c[Spielberg] was more exacting than I\u2019ve ever seen him because he knows he\u2019s worked in this area before,\u201d says Koepp. \u201cHe wants this one to be the best one.\u201d<\/p>\n Koepp was referring, of course, to Spielberg\u2019s multi-film preoccupation with visitors from outer space. But where Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/em> was a modern spiritual myth, E.T.<\/em> a coming-of-age tale, and War of the Worlds<\/em> a post-9\/11 horror movie, Koepp describes Disclosure Day<\/em> as a \u201970s-style paranoid thriller, a \u201cfurther exploration\u201d of the themes of, if not a spiritual sequel to, Close Encounters.<\/em> Asked whether he is a believer, Koepp slips into a contemplation of the limits of human perception. \u201cI think they\u2019re out there. I think maybe we\u2019re looking for the wrong things.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor in Disclosure Day<\/em><\/p>\n <\/span>Niko Tavernise\/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Colin Firth in Disclosure Day<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/span>Niko Tavernise\/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOur five senses are limited,\u201d he continues. \u201cVisually, we can see between 4,000 angstroms and 8,000 angstroms\u201d\u2014a scientific measurement for wavelengths of light. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty narrow. Dogs hear better than we do. That doesn\u2019t mean that other stuff\u2019s not there. Microwaves are bouncing around. We don\u2019t see them. We invented devices to see more and hear more, maybe a hundred years old, and that\u2019s still all we got.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s to say they take a form that we understand? Who\u2019s to say they\u2019re not here now, but in forms that we can\u2019t perceive either with our crude senses or technology?\u201d<\/p>\n In Koepp\u2019s office, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, foundational UFO volume The Flying Saucers Are Real<\/em> sits on the shelf between Joseph Campbell\u2019s The Hero With a Thousand Faces<\/em> and a couple of books on interrogation techniques. There are index cards arrayed on most horizontal surfaces and some vertical ones\u2014some for his next novel, some for his next movie project for Universal. Serving coffee to a visitor, he uses a stack of them in lieu of a coaster. There are film posters for the original King Kong<\/em> and Invasion of the Body Snatchers,<\/em> but notably, apart from a model of a brontosaurus and a fedora, there\u2019s virtually nothing in the way of personal movie memorabilia. Koepp says this is a form of self-preservation. \u201cOtherwise you start thinking, Gee that was a while ago. What have I done lately?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a0c94e8da4084067dc288af\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/VF0526_David-Koepp_07.jpg\"\/)
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