Spider-Man (2002 film) in the context of "James Franco"

David Koepp (/kɛp/; born June 9, 1963) is an American screenwriter and director. He is the fourth most successful screenwriter of all time in terms of U.S. box office receipts with a total gross of over $2.6 billion. Koepp has achieved both critical and commercial success in a wide variety of genres.

He is known for a variety of screenplays, including those of the Steven Spielberg–directed films Jurassic Park (1993), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), War of the Worlds (2005) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Other Koepp screenplays include those for the crime film Carlito's Way (1993); the action spy films Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014); the superhero film Spider-Man (2002); another Indiana Jones film, The Dial of Destiny (2023); and another Jurassic Park film, Jurassic World Rebirth (2025). Koepp has also directed seven feature films over the course of his career: The Trigger Effect (1996), Stir of Echoes (1999), Secret Window (2004), Ghost Town (2008), Premium Rush (2012), Mortdecai (2015), and You Should Have Left (2020).

Spider-Man 2 is a 2004 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. Directed by Sam Raimi and written by Alvin Sargent from a story conceived by Michael Chabon and the writing team of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, it is the second installment in Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, following the 2002 film. The film stars Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, alongside Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Alfred Molina, Rosemary Harris, and Donna Murphy. Peter Parker fights to stop scientist Dr. Otto Octavius from recreating a dangerous experiment, while also dealing with a personal crisis.

Principal photography began in April 2003 in New York City and also took place in Los Angeles. Reshoots took place later that year and concluded in February 2004. Danny Elfman returned to compose the score.

The Daily Bugle (at one time The DB!) is a fictional New York City tabloid newspaper appearing as a plot element in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Daily Bugle is a regular fixture in the Marvel Universe, most prominently in Spider-Man comic titles and their derivative media. The newspaper first appeared in the Human Torch story in Marvel Mystery Comics #18 (April 1941). It returned in Fantastic Four #2 (January 1962), and its offices were first depicted in The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (March 1963).

The Daily Bugle was first featured on film in the 2002 film Spider-Man. The fictional newspaper is meant to be a pastiche of both the New York Daily News and the New York Post, two popular real-life New York City tabloids. The outlet appears in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–07), Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man duology (2012–14) and Sony's Spider-Man Universe (2018–24). The agency is reimagined as a sensationalist news website in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), the SSU film Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), and the web series The Daily Bugle (2019–22), headlined by J. K. Simmons and Angourie Rice as J. Jonah Jameson and Betty Brant. An alternate version of the web series hosted by Nicque Marina was featured in promotional material for the SSU film Morbius (2022).