The long history of the remake to John Carpenter’s ’80s classic, Escape From New York, is packed with enough twists and turns to warrant its own feature. The rights have exchanged hands countless times, various scripts have been penned, and the early stages of the casting process began at one point. Heck, producer Joel Silver even spoke of a proposed rebooted trilogy. However, according to Deadline‘s latest scoop on the topic, any prior iterations of the redo can now be tossed out. With Fox’s winning bid securing the rights to the property, their intentions are to commence development with a clean slate.
Carpenter’s 1981 original took place in a dystopian 1997, and followed Kurt Russell’s tough-as-boots mercenary Snake Plissken. Offered a clean slate from previous charges if he rescues the President from Manhattan – now transformed into a high-security prison – he accepts the challenge and embarks on a journey studded with brilliant cameos, one-liners and action. Russell won’t be reprising his role, and neither will Sons Of Anarchy‘s Charlie Hunnam or Chris Hemsworth, who were both linked to the part quite recently. The ‘clean slate’ ethic stands, apart from one overlap: Carpenter himself.
Taking an executive producer credit on the remake, Carpenter’s duties will extend to ‘exert creative influence over the project.’ The remake will find the genre maestro working with Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman, whose The Picture Company outfit will be producing the futuristic actioner, alongside Fox’s Mike Ireland, who will oversee the project.
Looking to the future, Fox has high hopes for the proposed remake. You might have already guessed their intentions should Escape From New York prove to be a success: the flick will mark the beginning of a new trilogy. In this day and age it’s hardly a surprise, especially as the original has a cult following who will no doubt turn out in droves to see this updated take. Will you be one of them?
