The Escape From New York Reboot Has John Carpenter’s Blessing; Robert Rodriguez Still Attached To Direct

Snake Plissken is headed back to the silver screen.

Plans for a new interpretation of Escape From New York are afoot – it’s more of a prequel than an out-and-out remake, according to scribe Neil Cross (Luther) – and it seems legendary director John Carpenter has now given his blessing to the fledgling project.

Said to be the first chapter in a bona fide prequel trilogy – think of how Fox’s Planet of the Apes series received a new lease of life circa 2011 – Escape From New York will be helmed by Robert Rodriguez, and we’re now learning that Cross and Rodriguez’s story plan has received the seal of approval from Carpenter himself.

Here’s what Cross told Deadline, with a tip of the hat to Bloody Disgusting:

Robert Rodriguez is attached to direct and it’s looking good and exciting. It was quite a challenging script, it’s a challenging thing to reinvent. One of the most terrifying sentences I’ve ever heard in my life is ‘we’ve given the script to John Carpenter’. I crawled around for three days thinking ‘oh my god’ but we got John Carpenter’s seal of approval. He approved it and that’s all I need. You never quite know [if it’s done] but I might need to do some rewrites and do some nip and tuck but in the first approximation, my job is done.

So far, so good for the creative team at 20th Century Fox, though Escape From New York still has a long way to go before Snake Plissken is back in theaters. There’s been nary a mention of casting, while fans of Carpenter’s cult classic will be quietly rooting for a Kurt Russell cameo – hey, if he swung by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, there’s no harm in trying.

Alas, it’s more likely that Robert Rodriguez will want to create his own story while still retaining all of the futuristic trappings of 1990s Gotham. Indeed, the original largely centered on Snake infiltrating an unrecognizable New York City in order to retrieve the President of the United States – and, by effect, avert World War III – so it’s all but certain that Fox’s reinvention will journey back to explore Snake’s formative years.

More on Escape From New York when we have it.