David Koepp Is Writing a New Westworld Film for Warner Bros.
TL;DR: Screenwriter David Koepp — the man behind Jurassic Park — is officially developing a feature film remake of Michael Crichton's 1973 Westworld for Warner Bros. No cast or director is confirmed yet, though Deadline reports a major filmmaker is already circling the project. The original film and HBO's acclaimed series adaptation are both available on streaming platforms, making now a good time to revisit the source material.
"After bringing Michael Crichton's theme park vision to the screen scripting 1993's Jurassic Park and two sequels, screenwriter David Koepp is looking to tackle another one," Deadline reported exclusively on May 11, 2026, breaking the news of a new Westworld feature film in development at Warner Bros. It's a pairing that makes a certain kind of sense — Koepp and Crichton's theme-park-gone-wrong premise have a long and profitable history together. And the fact that it's happening now, when IP-driven blockbusters dominate studio slates and nostalgia is practically its own genre, tells you something about where Hollywood's head is at in 2026.
What We Know About the Warner Bros. Westworld Movie
Here are the confirmed details, as of the Deadline exclusive published May 11, 2026:
- Writer: David Koepp is scripting the film
- Studio: Warner Bros. (not MGM, which produced the 1973 original)
- Source material: Michael Crichton's 1973 film Westworld, which Crichton wrote and directed himself
- Director: Unnamed — though Deadline notes a "major filmmaker is circling"
- Cast: No confirmed cast as of publication
- Release date: Not announced
- Runtime: Not yet applicable — the script is still being written
The premise of the original: a luxury resort where wealthy guests can live out Wild West fantasies alongside hyper-realistic robots — until one of those robots malfunctions and starts shooting people for real. It's a concept that remains genuinely unsettling more than fifty years after it first hit screens, which is probably why Warner Bros. wants another crack at it.
What's worth noting is that this is technically a remake of the 1973 movie, not a continuation of the HBO television series. Warner Bros. owns both, having acquired the TV rights that became Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan's prestige drama — but Koepp's project is a separate beast entirely. A feature film, not a streaming series. Different format, different scale, different intent.
Why This Project Makes Sense Right Now (And Why It Might Not)
The timing isn't accidental. Koepp just finished scripting Jurassic World: Rebirth, the latest entry in Universal's dinosaur franchise, and he's also reunited with Steven Spielberg on Disclosure Day, a film opening June 12, 2026 through Universal that's already generating significant summer blockbuster buzz. Koepp is, in other words, very much in the business of resurrecting beloved IP — and he's apparently good at it.
What's striking is how cleanly Westworld fits his specific skill set. Koepp has spent the better part of three decades adapting high-concept, genre-forward material for mainstream audiences. His Wikipedia filmography reads like a museum of late-20th-century blockbusters: Mission: Impossible, Snake Eyes, Spider-Man, War of the Worlds, Angels & Demons. The man knows how to make a big machine run.
But here's the complication — and it's a real one. The HBO series, which ran from 2016 to 2022 and starred Evan Rachel Wood, Anthony Hopkins, Thandiwe Newton, and Ed Harris, did something genuinely ambitious with Crichton's premise. It turned a pulpy sci-fi thriller into a philosophical meditation on consciousness, free will, and what it means to be human. It won Emmy Awards. It built a devoted audience. And then it kind of collapsed under the weight of its own mythology in later seasons.
The question Koepp's film will have to answer — implicitly, through every scripting choice — is whether it's going back to the original's leaner, more visceral horror-thriller DNA, or trying to split the difference. Hard to say if that's even possible. The HBO series raised the ceiling on what this concept can do. Audiences now know this world can contain Anthony Hopkins monologuing about the nature of consciousness. A feature film probably can't and shouldn't try to compete with that directly.
The smarter play, and I'd guess this is the direction Koepp is heading, is to strip it back. Make it scary again. Make it a movie.
What David Koepp Said About Revisiting Crichton's World
No direct statement from Koepp about the Westworld project has been published at this time — the Deadline report is a trade exclusive without on-record quotes from the writer himself. However, Koepp spoke at length about his relationship with Crichton's material in a Creative Screenwriting interview about Jurassic World: Rebirth, where he discussed the challenge of returning to a franchise with deep audience expectations while still finding something new to say.
Deadline confirmed Koepp is "repped by CAA and attorney David Fox" — standard trade attribution that signals this is a live, active deal rather than early-stage speculation. The outlet also noted that a "major filmmaker is circling" the project as a potential director, which suggests this is further along in development than a simple spec script.
(Disclosure: Movie OTT reached out to Warner Bros. for additional comment on production timelines and has not received a response as of publication.)
How the Original Westworld and HBO Series Land for Indian Audiences
For viewers in India, the Westworld ecosystem is well-covered across major platforms. Here's where to find the existing material right now:
- HBO's Westworld (Seasons 1–4): Available on JioCinema Premium and Max (where available through partner access) — this is the most accessible route for Indian subscribers
- The 1973 Crichton film: Periodically available on Amazon Prime Video India and through Apple TV+ — availability shifts, so check Movie OTT's where-to-watch tracker for the current picture across regions
- Dubbed versions: The HBO series has been dubbed in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu for Indian audiences, making it reasonably accessible beyond English-language viewers
The HBO series, despite its later-season stumbles, built a real audience in India — particularly among viewers who had grown up watching American prestige TV and were drawn to its combination of science fiction, philosophical ambition, and production value. The first season especially, which aired in 2016, was treated as an event in Indian entertainment circles.
The new Koepp film, whenever it arrives, will almost certainly land on Max internationally, given Warner Bros.' existing streaming infrastructure. For Indian audiences, that likely means JioCinema Premium access, though formal OTT rights won't be confirmed until the film is closer to release.
Crichton's Original Vision, and How Koepp Changed the Game With Jurassic Park
Michael Crichton wrote and directed the 1973 Westworld himself — one of the few films where he held both credits. The movie starred Yul Brynner as the malfunctioning Gunslinger robot, with Richard Benjamin and James Brolin as the guests who find themselves hunted. Brynner's performance, largely wordless and physically precise, remains one of the great villain turns in science fiction cinema. That image — the black-hatted android, dead-eyed and relentless — is the one that lodged in the culture.
Crichton revisited the theme-park-as-disaster concept nearly two decades later with his novel Jurassic Park, published in 1990. When Steven Spielberg adapted it in 1993, Koepp wrote the screenplay — and the result was one of the highest-grossing films in history. Koepp returned for The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and, most recently, Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025). His Rotten Tomatoes profile reflects a career that oscillates between massive commercial hits and more personal, smaller-scale work.
What Koepp brought to Jurassic Park that made it work was clarity. The source novel is dense and technical; the film is propulsive and emotionally grounded. He's good at finding the human stakes inside a high-concept premise. That's exactly the skill a new Westworld film needs.
What Comes Next for the Westworld Feature Film
The project is, as of May 2026, in active script development. No production start date has been announced, no cast is attached, and the "major filmmaker" Deadline mentions as circling the director's chair has not been publicly identified. These things move at their own pace — a Koepp script for a Warner Bros. tentpole could take another year to reach production, with a realistic theatrical window somewhere in 2027 or 2028 at the earliest.
What to watch for: any director announcement will be the real signal of this film's ambitions and likely tone. A horror-leaning director would suggest Warner Bros. wants to lean into the original's thriller roots. An action-blockbuster filmmaker would signal something closer to a theme-park spectacle. Either could work. Both would be very different movies.
Movie OTT will track streaming availability for the 1973 original and the HBO series across India, the US, the UK, and Spain as the new film moves through development. For now — if you haven't seen Yul Brynner's Gunslinger — go find it. It still holds up. Completely.
