Tag: Screenwriting

Austin Film Festival 2025: Andrew Kevin Walker on SE7EN

Andrew Kevin Walker Interview: Austin Film Festival

Brian Taylor
October 30, 2025
The Cine-Men

Brian: Hello, Andrew. This is the first day of the Austin Film Festival, and I’m glad to sit down with you. I wanted to talk to you about your writing in your career. The first question I want to ask you is about your origin story, what made you want to be a writer, and who were some of your favorite writers growing up?

Andrew Kevin Walker: I really focused on screenwriting in college. I knew when I was a young kid that I wanted to work in the film industry. I remember, I was just talking to somebody about it because it was Jaws fiftieth anniversary, because it was so influential for me, and it really made me realize what a director does, et cetera. I was really into film early on and nerding out, reading American Film magazines and stuff in high school. I went into college studying film at Penn State, I was probably thinking I wanted to be a director but I really focused on screenwriting. There was an amazing screen writing teacher that was there at the time, I think he may still be teaching at Temple, his name is Jeff Rush. It was at Penn State that I focused on writing. Some my favorite writer’s? William Goldman is probably my favorite screenwriter of all time. My favorite novelist is [William] Somerset Maugham, which is not too surprising, I guess, there’s a couple of Somerset Maugham references in Se7en. As far as screenwriters go, Waldo Salt and William Goldman, some of the guys who were writing real classics, you know. My favorite two movies are Midnight Cowboy and Lawrence of Arabia.

Brian: That covers a lot.

Andrew: That covers the city and the desert I guess (laughs).

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Se7en Q&A, with Andrew Kevin Walker

Andy Volk
May 6, 2026
Austin Film Festival’s On Story

This week on On Story, we’ll travel back to the 90s with a retrospective on the crime thriller Se7en, with its screenwriter, Andrew Kevin Walker. Directed by David Fincher, Se7en stars Brad Pitt as David Mills, an idealistic young detective with a short fuse, who’s still adjusting to the violence and apathy of life in the big city. Mills is paired with William Somerset, a jaded Detective Lieutenant who’s only one week from retirement, played by Morgan Freeman. Mills and Somerset are tasked with investigating a pair of homicides that are exceptionally depraved and theatrical. The detectives realize that the two murders are only the beginning of a sadistic killing spree where each crime will be based on one of the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, pride, and lust. Mills and Somerset begin a desperate game of cat and mouse as they try to get inside the mind of this depraved killer and catch him before he can carry out his plan.

The film was nominated for a BAFTA award for Best Original Screenplay. Se7en was screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker’s first script to be sold. During Se7en’s three-year development period, Walker wrote the scripts for two horror movies: the sci-fi slasher Brainscan, about a troubled teen who’s seduced into committing crimes by a hypnotic interactive horror game, and the psychological horror Hideaway, about a man who survives a near-death experience and finds himself psychically connected to a serial killer. Walker has continued writing and producing in the crime thriller and sci-fi genres throughout his career. Walker wrote the script for 8mm, which follows a private detective investigating a snuff film which may depict a real murder. Walker collaborated with David Fincher again on the 2023 film The Killer, and on an episode of the animated series Love, Death & Robots. His writing credits also include Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, the animated comedy Nerdland, the crime thriller Windfall, and many more. AFF moderator Andy Volk sat down with Andrew Kevin Walker for a post-screening conversation on his experience writing Se7en based on a one-sentence logline, getting the script in front of director David Fincher, and working with the film’s production crew to craft a version of New York City lost in time.

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Download the screenplays by Andrew Kevin Walker:
andrewkevinwalker.com

Bong Joon Ho on His Favorite Films, the Joy of Hosting a Q&A with David Fincher, “Memories of Murder”, and his First Animated Movie, “Ally”

Bong Joon Ho officially has 7 different ideas for his next live-action movie.

Steven Weintraub & Tamera Jones
April 20, 2026
Collider

Academy Award-winning writer and director Bong Joon Ho is busy with development for his first-ever animated feature, Ally, an animated ocean adventure co-written by Bong and Jason Yu, set to make a big splash worldwide next year.

However, after taking some time to celebrate his exhibit at the Academy Museum, where Bong got to pick David Fincher‘s brain, he spoke with Collider‘s Steve Weintraub about his favorite films from fellow filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro, why his Q&A with Fincher was so meaningful, and what’s on the agenda for the rest of the year and beyond, including an exciting update on his next live-action film.

Read the full conversation

Watch the full conversation between Bong and Fincher, and read the transcript

Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin: Eric Roth

Rick Rubin
March 4, 2026
Tetragrammaton

Eric Roth is an Academy Award-winning screenwriter best known for adapting Forrest Gump, for which he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. He has received additional Academy Award nominations for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, A Star Is Born, and Dune: Part One, and is widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after writers. Roth co-wrote Killers of the Flower Moon with Martin Scorsese. He continues to work in films as both writer and executive producer. His latest project, the 2025 film The President’s Cake, is now playing in theaters.

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Shot Talk: Weapons, with Director Zach Cregger and Editor Joe Murphy

Oren Soffer
December 5, 2025
Shotdeck

Cinematographer Oren Soffer sits down with director Zach Cregger and editor Joe Murphy for an in-depth conversation about Weapons. From Zach’s meticulous pre-planning with photoboards, to Joe’s work shaping the tone of Gladys in the edit, to the rare opportunity to receive feedback from David Fincher, the duo breaks down the creative process behind the acclaimed supernatural horror film.

Along with the interview, we’re also releasing a bunch of great shots from the film, so you can start adding them to your decks and getting inspired right away!

But before you dive in and watch the filmmaking mini-masterclass above… make sure to go check out Weapons, streaming now on HBO Max.

Sign up for an account at ShotDeck, the world’s first fully-searchable film image database. It’s an invaluable research and educational resource that makes life easier for anyone in Film, Media, Advertising, and Education.

If you are creative, Shotdeck is the place to get inspired and discover new films and talented artists through our meticulously tagged database of still images, all while saving you time.

Search by film title, keyword, location, color, or a dozen other criteria to quickly find the exact “shots” you need to communicate your vision for your next project.

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‘The blight seeped into your soul’: How SE7EN reflected fears in the US in the 1980s

David Fincher’s gritty thriller commented on the urban blight and religious conservatism of the Reagan era. But it also predicted our obsession with true crime today.

Tom Joudrey
November 17, 2025
BBC

Thirty years after its release, David Fincher‘s Seven is now celebrated as the zenith of neo-noir crime thrillers. It raked in a whopping $327m (£250m) at the box office on a $34m (£26m) budget and earned raves from most critics when it came out in 1995. Still, the persistent argument against the film is that it relies too heavily on shock-and-awe gruesomeness to distract from its paper-thin ideas and shopworn crime tropes. A Washington Post critic lambasted Seven for disguising “formulaic writing” with gratuitous “bloodletting”, while a New York Times reviewer lamented that “not even bags of body parts… keep it from being dull”.

Three decades on, however, it’s clear that some critics missed a different layer to the film – namely, how it interpreted the US’s social crises of the 1980s. There was a worldwide recession at the start of the decade, and this coincided with high urban crime rates, a crack cocaine epidemic and the spread of Aids. The US’s new president, Ronald Reagan, responded to these issues with talk of being “tough on crime”, and his high-profile supporters included various influential Christian figures – leaders of what was known as the Christian right or the religious right – who preached the importance of traditional family values.

All of this fed into Seven. On one level, the film is an exquisitely well-made thriller about a psychopathic serial killer, but beneath its noir-style veneer lies a fascinating take on the way the US responded to some of its most divisive social issues.

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The Church of Tarantino Podcast: The Tarantino Interview

Reverend Scott K
August 15, 2025
The Church of Tarantino

The Church of Tarantino is a podcast channel with weekly shows dedicated to discussing every and anything related to the films of Quentin Tarantino. One of our 4 unique monthly series drop an episode every Friday. Ranking Tarantino (1st Friday of the month), The Bible Study (2nd Friday of the month), Inglourious Blue Balls (3rd Friday of the month) & Tarantinoesque Film Review (4th Friday of the month). Whether we’re ranking various aspects of his films, dissecting his scenes, discussing all the projects he’s announced, or reviewing films that are like his, there’s something for every QT fan.

For this episode, join the Reverend inside Pam’s Coffy, for his first ever sit down with Mr. Quentin Tarantino, as they discuss the cancellation of The Movie Critic, the origin of The Adventures of Cliff Booth, why he handed it to Brad Pitt and David Fincher, his “favorite director”, what his next project is going to be, why Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is still unavailable to the public, the brilliance of the late great Michael Madsen and so much more, including the question he’s been dying to ask for over 2 and a half years: “What ever happened to the Untitled TV Series?” This is a must-listen for true Tarantino fans.

Listen to the podcast and read excerpts from the transcript

Seven: The Gwyneth Paltrow and Morgan Freeman diner scene may be its most pivotal moment

Two characters, four minutes, a brief exchange: Seven’s diner scene may be the most pivotal in the whole movie.

Ryan Lambie
February 6, 2024
Film Stories

Spoilers ahead for 1995’s Seven. Spoilers also ahead for 1995’s Se7en. Whichever way you spell it, consider yourself warned.

When Seven came out in 1995, it finally put David Fincher on the map as a filmmaking talent after the production nightmare he endured with Alien 3 only three years earlier. A mid-budget thriller elevated by its top-notch performances and unremittingly tense, grim tone, it also – as most readers will know – contained one of the most celebrated and discussed endings in film history.

Amid all the despair and violent murders, though, one quieter scene may be Seven’s most pivotal. It’s the moment where Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), the young wife of hot-headed detective Mills (Brad Pitt) surreptitiously meets Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) in a busy downtown diner. Ostensibly, she’s there to vent her feelings about moving from the comfort of the suburbs to a noisy and rundown metropolis (the city in Seven is never named, but it’s implied to be New York).

As the pair talk, though, Somerset astutely figures out that something more serious is bothering Tracy. She then reveals that she’s pregnant, and is unsure whether she wants to keep the baby, given they’ve just moved to a cramped apartment and her husband’s just taken on a demanding new job.

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The Screenplay for “Love, Death + Robots: Bad Travelling” by Andrew Kevin Walker

January 26, 2024
andrewkevinwalker.com

Download the Screenplay and Beat Sheet for Love, Death + Robots: Bad Travelling from Andrew Kevin Walker’s website (links in the top right of the script pile).

Winner of the 2022 Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production.

Follow Andrew Kevin Walker on Instagram

Read the LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. Volume 3 guide

Watch LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS on Netflix

In Conversation: David Fincher and The Crew of “The Killer” in New York

Tomris Laffly
October 28, 2023

David Fincher discusses the making of The Killer with Sound Designer Ren Klyce, Editor Kirk Baxter, and Writer Andrew Kevin Walker, after the screening for the press in New York. Hosted by Tomris Laffly.

(Video clips recorded with a phone from the audience, with not very good audio and, for some reason, with each video clip edited in twice).

In Conversation: David Fincher and Michael Fassbender with Rian Johnson on “The Killer” at the Academy Museum

Rian Johnson
November 15, 2023
Netflix: Behind the Streams

Director David Fincher and actor Michael Fassbender discuss making The Killer with moderator Rian Johnson at The Academy Museum in Los Angeles.

Watch The Killer on Netflix