John Carpenter reveals his level of involvement in the new ‘Escape from New York’

John Carpenter has earned his reputation as a master of horror. He’s responsible for classics like Halloween, The Thing, Prince of Darkness, and They Live (not to mention kick-ass action movies Big Trouble in Little China and Assault on Precinct 13). He also played a major role behind the scenes on Blumhouse’s Halloween trilogy, providing a new synth score for each film.

For many, his best movie will always be 1981’s Escape from New York. The gritty sci-fi masterpiece stars Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, a mercenary tasked with journeying into Manhattan to rescue the President. Set in the grim future year of 1997, the island has been converted into a maximum security prison, and Snake is the only man with the skills to navigate the broken city and its violent inhabitants.

Sequel Escape from L.A. followed in 1996, but over the years there have been rumblings of a reboot. At one point, Gerard Butler was attached to play Snake in a remake, though it seems the current plan is for a sequel, as Radio Silence’s Tyler Gillett revealed in December.

“Not a remake. That’s one of those properties that you can’t [remake], it’s sort of untouchable to us, and lives in its own stratosphere in terms of how important it is to us, and how much we love it. So it’ll be not unlike ‘Scream,’ I think, a nod to, and a continuation of, what we love about those characters and that world.”

But it looks like Carpenter’s involvement will be very light, despite him having an executive producer credit on the new movie, as he explained to Variety when asked about the project.

“No one told me about it. This is the thing about my career in Hollywood — no one tells me anything. They never tell me things. Have they cast it yet? The last I heard was they were developing it where Snake would be a woman. But, no, I haven’t heard about this latest thing. No one wants me around, and they don’t tell me anything to keep me in the dark. It’s safer for them.”

Fortunately, it seems Carpenter was indeed included in the memo, as his wife Sandy interrupted to clarify:

“Apparently, we got an email. My wife tells me we got an email.”

Carpenter provided an all-time classic synth score for the 1981 original, so we hope they’re following Halloween‘s lead and tapping him for a soundtrack to whatever the new Escape from New York movie turns out to be.