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Overview

Born
June 9, 1963 · Pewaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Height
1.91 m

Biography

Family

Spouse

Trademarks

Often writes big-budget action-adventures (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), War of the Worlds (2005), Spider-Man (2002), Mission: Impossible (1996), Jurassic Park (1993)).
Often writes and/or directs dark, suspenseful dramas (Secret Window (2004), _The Trigger Effect (1996)_, Suspicious (1994), Toy Soldiers (1991), Bad Influence (1990), Apartment Zero (1988)).

Trivia

In an interview, he claimed that one of the things that inspired him to write movies was the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark in which the buildup for a bull whip and scimitar fight ends up with Indy shooting the swordsman. Ironically, this scene was not conceived by the writer, but was the result of an offhand remark during shooting.
He was unavailable to return to write the Men in Black (1997) sequel screenplay because he was writing another comic book adaption at the time, Spider-Man (2002).
He is a graduate of UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.
His surname is German and is pronounced "Kep".
Born on exactly the same date as Johnny Depp.

Quotes

[on Frank Darabont's rejected screenplay for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)] I've never actually met Frank Darabont, but I hear he's a lovely guy. Just for the record, the Indiana Jones jumping into the fridge bit is in the Darabont script. And I loved it, which is why I pushed it into the movie! I thought it was a great idea![Jan.2015]
[on his script for Snake Eyes (1998)] It had a different ending, yep. And I'm trying to remember what the original ending was... [Gary Sinise's character] didn't die, Nicolas Cage's character saved him at the end. It's not uncommon to change things. It didn't end up that much different, it's just that they wanted the bad guy to get his comeuppance. So he did.[Jan.2015]
[on writing Mission: Impossible (1996)] Tom Cruise was involved first. He was interested in doing it, and he was producing it. And then Brian De Palma called me and said why don't you take a crack at it. You have to consider who's in it, and then make it work. The essential problem was Tom Cruise was the biggest star on the planet, and [the original TV show] was an ensemble that tilts towards no-one. I'd never viewed the TV show as sacrosanct. We had to acknowledge who our cast was. So I can't remember whose idea it was, either De Palma or Steven Zaillian said let's start by killing the team, lets just get rid of them. Because you had to work out how you get this ensemble piece into a star vehicle. So we killed everybody, and we were feeling very cheeky, and decided we're going to do want we want, we'll kill people, we'll make the good guy the bad guy [refering to character 'Jim Phelbs' (John Voight'], and added in the new recruits. And I think it worked out well.[Jan.2015]