ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK Remake is Moving Forward and Snake is Required to be a Bad-ass
Here's yet another movie that Hollywood thinks it needs to remake. There's been talk about doing it for some time now, but now it looks like John Carpenter's 1981 classic, Escape From New York, is actually going to get the remake treatment.
New Line Cinema has put the film on the fast track to production now thanks to a script for the film that was rewritten by Allan Loeb. The studio loved it!
According to Vulture, "Loeb nailed the humor in Plissken without slipping into camp, and he changed Snake’s rescue-mission target from a president to a female senator, thereby upping the banter quotient. But just as big a factor was economic: They found a much cheaper way to turn Manhattan into a giant prison."
In the story, Manhattan is evacuated and turned into a privately run penal colony after the detonation of a crude radioactive dirty bomb on the outskirts of the city. New York City will be a place that you wouldn't want to visit, but it will be recognizable. It won't be totally destroyed. The film is described not as a disaster movie but as "an exposé of an ecosystem, if you put a huge wall around Manhattan and then dropped in the most f'ed-up, dangerous criminals on Earth."
Snake will be Snake. For New Line to actually land the movie rights to this thing, they had to sign a contract saying that Plissken "must be called 'Snake'"; "must wear an eye patch"; and that he would "always be a 'bad-ass.'" No joke! That was in the contract! So yes, Snake will be the Snake that John Carpenter envisioned all those years ago. It just wont be played by Kurt Russell, but they've gotta cast a bad-ass actor otherwise New Line will be in breach of contract.
I can't say I'm too thriller about Escape From New York being remade, but this is the way Hollywood works now. As for who will play Snake in the film... your guess is as good as mine, but I bet they'll go after someone like Gerard Butler.
What are your thoughts on Escape From New York being remade? Who do you think should take on the role of Snake?