Anyone sick of remakes or talk of remakes yet? Well hold on to your eye-patches… Yet another cult classic is set for a 21st-century injection of life and this time in the form of John Carpenter’s 1981 dystopian action caper Escape from New York with Robert Rodriguez set to take the helm.
The original, which was co-written and directed by John Carpenter in the mid-1970s as a reaction to the Watergate scandal, was set in the then near future of 1997 in a crime-ridden New York, which saw the whole of Manhattan Island transformed into a maximum security prison. Kurt Russell, who will play Ego the Living Planet in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, clad in a sexy black vest, eye-patch and sporting solder length flowing locks, played ex-soldier, Snake Plissken, a man on a 24-hour mission to find the President of the United States. POTUS was played by Donald Pleasence after Air Force One had crashed and he was taken hostage by prisoners. The film became an instant hit back in the day which earned itself a sequel in the form of Escape from LA in 1996.
Rodriquez is no stranger to the action genre, he has worked alongside Quentin Tarantino on From Dusk to Dawn and Grindhouse as well as having co-directed graphic novel adaptation Sin City and its sequel A Dame to Kill for as well as the Spy Kids franchise and the Mexico trilogy which followed the character of El Mariachi. Also on board to write the screenplay is Neil Cross, the creator of the hugely popular British crime Series Luther, which starred Idris Elba.
Carpenter is all set to executive produce on the Escape from New York remake, which 20th Century Fox, who own the rights for the remake, are hoping to turn into a highly lucrative film franchise.
A full plot or cast are yet to be revealed but we would love to see Russell reprising his role as an ageing Snake stuck in the past still wearing those god awful clothes, including the eye-patch.
