Koepp agreed to send it to his agent, who found a buyer in New Line Cinema. Satisfied with the outcome, he sent the script to professional writer David Koepp, then followed up with a phone call. Making ends meet at a New York City Tower Records store, Walker was so depressed that he wrote a bleak and oppressive script about the hunt for a killer who uses the seven deadly sins as inspiration for his crimes. Several years later, however, he was no closer to achieving his goal of working in the industry. Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker was a graduate of Penn State’s film program. Se7en came from the mind of a record store employee. But with audience fatigue setting in, few expected that 1995’s Se7en-from a first-time screenwriter and an as-yet-unproven director-would turn out to be a modern genre classic. While the 1980s were all about the cinematic mass murderer as a mute, emotionless entity, the 1990s were a good time to peddle screenplays about high-IQ serial killers: The Silence of the Lambs started the decade by becoming one of the few thrillers to ever receive a Best Picture Oscar.
