Yet another unnecessary remake/reboot is on the way, but this is one that has been kicking around for a while.
Vulture has revealed that New Line is moving ahead with plans for a remake of John Carpenter’s still great “Escape From New York.” The project, has apparently been given a major boost thanks to a supposedly strong script by Allan Loeb (“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” “The Baster”) which has studio suits excited.
Anyway, so what is it about this draft that makes it so special versus the others that have been turned in? This script is apparently funny without being campy (we’re guessing they didn’t bother watching the trailer for “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” in which the dialogue is laugh-out-loud terrible) and that the “banter quotient” (blech) has been increased thanks to a change in the “rescue mission target from a president to a female senator” (we guess a female president is still too unbelievable for the future). However, the biggest stumbling block – budget – has apparently been overcome thanks to an idea by previous writer David Kajganich. In this version, New York City 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.” According to Vulture’s source, “It is not a disaster movie. It is an exposé of an ecosystem, if you put a huge wall around Manhattan and then dropped in the most fucked-up, dangerous criminals on Earth.” Putting that vision on screen will be far less expensive than the cost involved in creating the World War III ravaged New York City that Snake encountered in the original film.
But don’t think that John Carpenter is just lying around letting his franchise get mauled. In order to secure the rights, New Line had to put it in writing that Plissken “must be called ‘Snake'”; “must wear an eye patch”; and most awesomely must “always be a ‘bad-ass’.” We wish more franchise contracts were that amazing.
We still think this a bad idea and we’re not sure how much of a ‘bad-ass’ Snake will be exchanging flirty one liners as he rescues a damsel in distress. We’d love to see a court case determining which whether the contemporary Snake is a ‘bad ass’ or not. At any rate, that might prove to be more entertaining than this remake. While details on casting and production schedules are yet to be revealed, for what it’s worth, back in 2007 Gerard Butler was attached to the remake while it was over Fox. If this is does have to get made our dream lead is Tom Hardy but that will probably never happen.
