The internet is convinced Steven Spielberg is making a new Westworld movie
Overview & Key Takeaways
With a Westworld remake confirmed and Steven Spielberg's favorite screenwriter onboard, the director's involvement could be inevitable.
Westworld is coming back, but not in the way you might think. While Jonathon Nolan and Lisa Joy’s four-season TV series remains unfinished (and canceled), Warner Bros. is reportedly eyeing a reboot more closely aligned with Michael Crichton’s original 1973 project. Despite the limited information about the movie, some movie fans are already speculating that none other than Steven Spielberg — and the argument is pretty compelling.
It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Legendary screenwriter David Koepp, whose credits include the adaptation of Crichton’s Jurassic Park and its two sequels, is penning the new Westworld script, according to Deadline. Koepp is a frequent collaborator with Spielberg, having written several of the director’s past projects, including War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and the upcoming alien-invasion movie Disclosure Day. Deadline also notes in its reporting that “a major filmmaker is circling,” but this could mean anyone from Denis Villeneuve to Quentin Tarantino.
Spielberg himself unknowingly added fuel to the fire months ago by outing his next film as a “Western” on stage at South by Southwest in March. He specified that the movie would “kick ass” and feature “no tropes,” promising a unique take on the genre. In his over 55 years of filmmaking, Spielberg has yet to direct an official Western film, which would make the Westworld reboot his very first if he’s truly attached.
While calling Westworld a “Western” is a bit disingenuous, as it’s more akin to a neo-Western with a heavy dose of sci-fi baked in, this doesn’t exactly dispel the idea that Spielberg is directing Westworld. If anything, it reinforces it even further. With such a long pedigree of sci-fi movies under his belt, Spielberg may well be the best person to tap for a Westworld remake.
That’s not even mentioning the fact that Crichton’s 1973 film was itself a thematic precursor to Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. Although Crichton never officially novelized Westworld or its sequels, the story of an android gunslinger going haywire in a futuristic theme park came well before the one with dinosaurs. And if the Jurassic Park movies prove anything, it’s that Spielberg can make a theme park feel absolutely terrifying even before the attractions go out of sync, and his take on the franchise will be vastly different from what Joy and Nolan brought to the table.
We’ll just have to wait and see, as little information currently exists surrounding the Westworld reboot. It’s certainly an interesting theory based on several fairly solid factors, but we won’t know until Warner Bros or Spielberg officially weigh in.
