It has been almost two years since news broke that Fox were diving back into the future chaos of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. Thankfully it was also confirmed that Carpenter would be involved in the new chapter, at that time officially a reboot of the series, with a view to a lasting franchise. Of course.
Further details have emerged today, courtesy of The Wrap and Bloody Disgusting, that the new Escape from… film won’t be exactly what we were expecting. And several of the details cast new light on the places the series may go in the future.
Luther’s Neal Cross delivered a script a month ago, presumably reworking the previous versions which had our ocularly-challenged hero joined by three other characters in their quest to fulfill the title’s promise. The reports state that this new version does not begin in New York, and casts a wider net to portray a world in chaos. Also it revealed that Snake’s full name is Colonel Robert “Snake” Plissken.
The antagonist will be “Thomas Newton, the playboy heir to an agrochemical and biotech corporation” whose well-publicised philanthropy is certain to be turned on its head by the end of the film.
An intriguing element of the new film will be New York itself. Not the maximum security prison we know and love, Manhattan will instead by a glass utopia, with constant surveillance and a ton of artificial intelligence woven into the infrastructure. Chances are that this will turn against our heroes once the action kicks in, it certainly suggests a prison of a different kind. There’s also a hurricane heading for the city. So there’s that.
Bloody Disgusting also state that the film is intended as a prequel to the original film, very much in line with the recent Planet of the Apes reboot. It’s a canny move on the part of the studio as it opens up the timeline for films to be made leading up to the well-known events of the original. HBO’s Westworld is running a similar trick at the moment and you can expect this to continue.
Hopefully we’ll hear more about the new film, and the new lead (Charlie Hunnam, Dan Stevens, Jeremy Renner and more were all in the running over the last two years) but it seems ‘Bob’ Plissken and Co are in good hands.
The title image is by Gabz.
