For years now, the pursuit of an _Escape From New York_remake has been a fool’s errand. To write one is impossible. To direct one is insane. Len Wiseman was going to tackle it in 2007 with Gerard Butler. Joel Silver wanted to make a whole trilogy in the mid-2010s. Just a few short years ago, Radio Silence signed on to bring Snake Plissken back. But now, per THR‘s reporting, it appears that Zack Snyder is set to be the man to go in and remake John Carpenter’s dystopian cult classic.
According to THR, Snyder — who’s most recently been working on low-budget passion project The Last Photograph after the high-profile releases of his Justice League and Rebel Moon movies — is aboard to write and direct ‘a reimagining’ of Carpenter’s 1981 action flick. For those who may not know, Escape From New York was set in a dystopian future where the isle of Manhattan had been turned into a maximum security prison. In the OG film, Kurt Russell starred as tattooed, eye-patch wearing anti-hero Snake Plissken, a disgraced former military hero sent on a one-man-Suicide-Squad style mission to enter the island and extract the crash-landed President of the United States. Part character piece, part black comedy, all post-Vietnam/Watergate individualism and anti-establishment sentiment, Escape From New York oozes a cool and an idiosyncrasy filmmakers have been looking to replicate ever since. That Snyder’s version, which will have Carpenter aboard as Executive Producer, is being eyed for theatrical release by StudioCanal is a promising sign that maybe someone has finally cracked a modern take on the source material.
We don’t know who’ll be in Snyder’s Escape From New York just yet, just as we don’t know when his The Last Photograph will reach our screens. What we do know however is that Snyder has previous for reinvigorating long-since considered untouchable classics (hello Dawn Of The Dead!), sources suggest the 300 filmmaker is opting for a ‘down-and-dirty’ approach to the material, and we are very interested to see what his vision of Carpenter’s movie will look like. And, of course, who will be playing Snake Plissken. Our eyepatches are at the ready, and our stick-on cobra tattoos are waiting. Give us a call!
Sources Links
THR
