David Koepp

Well, I wrote the story, so I wrote it from scratch based on my deep interest in this subject, and so much was starting to come out in 2017.

All right.

And I was very satisfied with Close Encounters, very satisfied having made E.T., and then even War of the Worlds, which was more analogous to 9-11 than to Aliens.

But when I saw that...

everybody that has a smartphone has been photographing and capturing some extraordinary things happening.

It's incredible how much is out there right now.

And some of it, yes, can be faked, but a lot of it I don't think is.

And it just, my interest, I didn't think I would get interested again in this subject.

And then when the 2017 New York Times article came out, I thought, well, you know, something's about to happen.

May not be this year or next year, but something is going to happen soon.

And I really would like this movie to be my summation story in my entire, I guess, filmography of UFOs and extraterrestrials.

Well, because I've often, I've dwelled a lot about not just empathy, but the lack of empathy.

And the feeling that empathy is sort of in short supply.

It used to be a lot more taken for granted, and now you have to kind of find it, reach for it.

the way our country's divided and the way people go to their silos and they stayed with their groups and it's kind of like- Heels dug in, yeah?

Heels dug in.

It's sort of like sports too in that sense.

It's not a lot of empathy between crowds competing against each other in any sporting event.

Empathy is toward your team, toward your home team, but not toward the opposition.

And so more and more, we're having less and less common ground that we can find.