ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK Remake Is in Development at StudioCanal
It looks like Snake Plissken might be gearing up for a comeback. StudioCanal is officially moving forward with a new take on Escape from New York, teaming up with The Picture Company to bring the cult sci-fi classic back to the big screen.
For fans of gritty dystopian action, this project has been circling Hollywood for a while, and now it’s finally picking up momentum again. I can’t say I’m a fan of the idea as I’m such a huge fan of the original film, but maybe they will do something interesting with it.
The original Escape from New York, directed by John Carpenter, hit theaters in 1981 and dropped audiences into a bleak version of 1997. In the film, When the U.S. president crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber is sent in to rescue him.
That bank robber, of course, was Snake Plissken, played by Kurt Russell, who turned the character into one of the coolest antiheroes in genre cinema.
Carpenter expanded the story years later with Escape from LA in 1996. The sequel raised the stakes and leaned further into its wild tone. In that film, Snake Plissken is once again called in by the United States government to recover a potential doomsday device from Los Angeles, now an autonomous island where undesirables are deported.
This new remake has had a bit of a winding road to get here. A few years back, the filmmaking team known as Radio Silence was attached to a “requel” version at 20th Century Studios, with Saw creator Leigh Whannell set to write. That version ultimately fell apart, leaving the project in limbo until now.
What makes this latest development interesting is that it’s being framed as a full reimagining rather than a continuation. That opens the door to a fresh take on Snake Plissken and the prison island of Manhattan, while still honoring the raw, stripped-down energy that made the original film hit so hard.
There’s still a lot we don’t know. Carpenter has previously said back in 2019 that he believed there were more stories to tell with Snake Plissken, but there’s no confirmation yet on whether he’ll be directly involved in this new version. The same goes for Kurt Russell, whose return would instantly electrify longtime fans, but hasn’t been announced.
Either way, revisiting Escape from New York feels like a interesting choice. The mix of dystopian world-building, anti-establishment attitude, and rough-edged action still resonates, and with the right creative team, this could work.
For now, all eyes are on StudioCanal to see how they handle one of sci-fi’s most iconic properties. And if Snake Plissken does make it back to the screen, let’s just hope they remember one thing… he’s still not someone you want to mess with.