Escape From New York remake

[MacGuffin]

Butler has 'Escape' plan
'300' star heads to 'New York'
Source: Variety

Hot off the socko bow of "300" this past weekend, star Gerard Butler is at the center of a package that CAA began shopping Monday for a remake of John Carpenter's 1981 actioner "Escape From New York."

Neal Moritz is attached to produce, with "Black Hawk Down" scribe Ken Nolan penning the screenplay.

Several studios are battling for the pic, mostly because the $70 million launch of "300" signaled the arrival of an emerging action star in Butler. A deal is expected to be made this week.

Butler would play Snake Plissken, the one-eyed convict who's charged with heading into the inescapable maximum security prison formerly known as Manhattan to liberate the U.S. president.

Kurt Russell originated the role and reprised it in the 1996 sequel "Escape to L.A."

[MacGuffin]

Kurt Blasts Escape Remake
The original Snake Plissken ain't happy.

The news that New Line Cinema is remaking Escape From New York -- and have cast 300's Gerard Butler as Snake Plissken -- hasn't exactly met with universal approval from many fans of the original film. And one of those fans is the man who starred in it, Kurt Russell.

Russell fumed about the remake to Entertainment Weekly, especially the casting of a Scottish actor to succeed him as one-eyed badass Snake Plissken. "I will say that when I was told who was going to play Snake Plissken, my initial reaction was ''Oh, man!'' [Russell winces]. I do think that character was quintessentially one thing. And that is, American," the actor advised EW.com.

To Russell, his Escape From New York anti-hero wasn't just any other role. "People come up to me and say, ''You played Snake Plissken.'' I didn't play Snake Plissken, I created him!"

He is also adamantly against the idea of making a cameo or playing any other role in it. "(Expletive) that! I am Snake Plissken! It's like Sean Connery always watching someone else do their version of Bond. I think one of the things, for instance, about Escape From New York that appealed to me was that it wasn't a special effects extravaganza. It's a quiet, dark world and it revolved around watching the behavior of this one guy. He's a fascinating character. In fact, he's the most complex character I've ever played."

[MacGuffin]

Snake Plissken: The Early Years
Producer confirms Escape will be a prequel.

Exec producer John Carpenter, who directed the 1981 original, recently speculated that New Line Cinema's planned retelling of Escape From New York may be more of a prequel than a flat-out remake. Now the project's producer, Neal Moritz, has confirmed that approach.

In a brief interview in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, Moritz says the new Escape will recount "how Snake became Snake," adding that the story -- to be scripted by Black Hawk Down's Ken Nolan -- will be "almost an origin story."

So there you have it. Snake Plissken, the film's one-eyed badass anti-hero, will be getting the "how he came to be" treatment, a la Batman Begins and Casino Royale.

Will that mean audiences will see Snake's military service, how he lost his eye and became an outlaw? Can fans expect to see Snake, Brain and Fresno Bob raising hell together?

Ironically, IGN offered up it's own suggestions on how to reboot the Escape From New York franchise back in January -- weeks before the news broke -- and we said it should focus on Snake's back-story.

300's Gerard Butler will play Snake, stepping into the thigh-high boots last worn by Kurt Russell, who has gone on record about how unhappy he is with the new Escape.

[grand theft sparrow]

A prequel to a movie set in the post-apocalyptic world of 1997, hmm?

So Snake's going to listen to a lot of grunge and Reservoir Dogs will be his favorite movie, I guess.

[MacGuffin]

Escape From Brett Ratner
Wiseman leaves New York, ditches Gears of War?

Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand) has reportedly replaced Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) as the director of New Line's Escape From New York remake.

Ain't It Cool News first reported a rumor that Wiseman had jumped ship and that the studio's choice to replace him at the helm was Ratner. IESB.net contacted a source at New Line who confirmed Wiseman's departure.

The site also claims that Wiseman won't be directing New Line's Gears of War movie either, as had been previously reported. "New Line Cinema will most likely not move forward with (Gears of War) at all. Our source is saying that the studio has concerns with ballooning budget of the film," according to IESB

[B.C. Long]

Oh sweet. Now Christ Tucker can play The Duke of New York!!!

[w/o horse]

A prequel to a movie set in the post-apocalyptic world of 1997, hmm?

So Snake's going to listen to a lot of grunge and Reservoir Dogs will be his favorite movie, I guess.

That's funny.

Escape from New York is one of my faves.  As you can see here, here, and here.  So the prospect of Ratner directing the prequel is really bum news for me.  I hope something shiny distracts Ratner away from the project.  That kind of seems likely too.

[MacGuffin]

RATNER UNINTERESTED IN WISEMAN'S SLOPPY PLISSKEN SECONDS
Source: CHUD

The very idea of an Escape from New York remake is anything but good news, but since it is going to happen, the least we can hope for is that it either receives an imaginative overhaul (not bloody likely with Ken Nolan's ho-hum draft) or bombs quietly like Rupert Wainwright's The Fog.

The latter suddenly seems a distinct possibility now that Brett Ratner has, allegedly, abandoned the project. This info arrives courtesy of AICN, which received a missive from a longtime scooper who spoke with the Rush Hour 3 maestro at the Savannah Film Festival (where he was receiving an "Achievement in Film" award!). According to Ratner, the project is still alive, but, alas, he has moved on. To what, I have no idea. The Hugh Hefner biopic? The William Stadiem-scripted Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra (with Chris Tucker starring as The Chairman's valet, George Jacobs)? A whore stacking contest with Robert Evans?

Escape from New York is a priority project for New Line (which desperately needs a franchise infusion), so Option C (i.e. Les Mayfield) should be announced any day now.

[MacGuffin]

Butler escapes 'New York' remake
Actor exits film due to creative differences
Source: Variety

Before they shot a frame of film, Gerard Butler escaped "Escape From New York," the remake of the John Carpenter film.

Right after his turn as the Spartan in "300," Butler made a deal to play Snake Plissken in a film bought at auction by New Line. He left for creative differences. New Line is persevering: studio has brought Jonathan Mostow in to rewrite, with an option to direct.

Butler just began production on Lakeshore's "Game," which Lionsgate will distribute. He'll next be seen starring in the Richard LaGravanese-directed "P.S., I Love You," the Guy Ritchie-directed "Rock N Rolla," and Fox-Walden's "Nim's Island."

[w/o horse]

They should do another Vs. movie instead and leave Snake alone.  This thing is already falling apart.

My roommate by the way just purchased and hung up an Escape from LA poster.  Yes.

[NEON MERCURY]

Kurt Blasts Escape Remake
The original Snake Plissken ain't happy.

To Russell, his Escape From New York anti-hero wasn't just any other role. "People come up to me and say, ''You played Snake Plissken.'' I didn't play Snake Plissken, I created him!"

He is also adamantly against the idea of making a cameo or playing any other role in it. "(Expletive) that! I am Snake Plissken! It's like Sean Connery always watching someone else do their version of Bond. I think one of the things, for instance, about Escape From New York that appealed to me was that it wasn't a special effects extravaganza. It's a quiet, dark world and it revolved around watching the behavior of this one guy."

i know remakes are annoying but damn, russell sounds like an asshole.  who cares if they remake this one anyway.  both escapes are white trash b-movie shit.

"He's a fascinating character. In fact, he's the most complex character I've ever played.

what about the capt'n?

[MacGuffin]

Exclusive Details on the Escape From New York Remake: Different Big Apple, Same Eye Patch
Source: NYMag

New Line Cinema is quickly moving forward with plans to remake John Carpenter's 1981 dystopian action classic Escape From New York, thanks to a rewrite from Allan Loeb, the man who rescued the Wall Street sequel from development limbo over at Fox. A big reason for the fast track was creative: 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 original, set at the end of World War III, New York City was a husk of itself after being turned into a giant prison, but that kind of destruction gets pricey.* So in Escape 2.0, the Big Apple that the as-yet-uncast Snake Plissken is dropped into will be geographically undesirable, but intact: This Manhattan was evacuated and turned into a privately run penal colony after the detonation of a crude radioactive dirty bomb on the outskirts of the city. "It is not a disaster movie," says a source close to the project. "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." This means New York will still be recognizable to audiences, à la I Am Legend, rather than an entirely new Armageddon Island. (Previous scribe David Kajganich, who wrote The Invasion, is credited with this solution.)

Much like in the original movie, the authorities have set up shop in the Statue of Liberty (though this time it's not the police, it's a private, KBR-like security company)*, and now new prisoners are being processed through Ellis Island. And more importantly, good ol' Snake remains largely the same. Legally, he has to be. We learned that in order to land the rights, New Line had to sign a contract with John Carpenter stipulating, among other things, that Plissken "must be called 'Snake'"; "must wear an eye patch"; and that he would — and we're not making this up — "always be a 'bad-ass.'"; So, if you ever catch the new Snake watching Grey's Anatomy or complaining that the senator isn't "emotionally available," just know that somewhere, some poor development exec is about to be carted off to jail.

*These parts have been updated since posting.

[matt35mm]

Normally I'm relatively pro-remake, probably because I'm quite attached to theatre and it's a matter of course that the same plays are done again and again, often with great results...

BUT THIS IS FUCKING BLASPHEMY.  As the man himself said, Kurt Russell IS Snake Plissken.  This is one piece of artistic property that they cannot possibly add to, which means that they can only subtract.  At least there's a contract to state that Snake must always be a bad-ass, but that neglects that there is a very precarious degree of bad-assness that Kurt Russell pulls off in the film.  If they somehow try to make him more bad-ass, which they probably will, he'll just be a jerk.

Fortunately (and this is another reason that I'm generally not anti-remake), we will always have the original film, which we can watch any time we damn well please.

[pete]

I think my problem with remakes is even simpler: they always sound so dumb the way they're written about in these hype articles. 

[Pubrick]

my problem with remakes is even simpler than that: they suck.