EVEN ON A filmography as loaded with belters as David Koepp’s, one of the finest screenwriters in Hollywood, 1993 stands out by a country mile. Largely because of Jurassic Park, but it’s also the year of Carlito’s Way, the gangster film that reunited director Brian De Palma and star Al Pacino, ten years after Scarface. Initially shunned upon release, critically and commercially, the last 30 years have seen its reputation restored, and it’s now seen as an overlooked classic.
“I actually wrote this before Jurassic Park,” says Koepp. Then a writer contracted to Universal, he was asked by producer Martin Bregman, with whom he had just worked on The Shadow, to take a look at adapting two books by actual-New-York-judge-turned-author Edwin Torres, titled Carlito’s Way and After Hours, with an eye to having Al Pacino star in the resulting single movie.