If you ask us at STARBURST, John Carpenter’s ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is one of the coolest movies of all time, with Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken a favourite of many of ours. With the news over the last few years that a remake of Carpenter’s 1981 classic was happening, let’s just say we weren’t exactly enthused by those developments. Now comes word on something that actually puts us a little more at ease with the remake.

As the title suggests, as reported by Deadline, John Carpenter will actually be a part of 20th Century Fox’s ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK redo, with Fox having recently secured the rights to the property. The legendary Carpenter will serve as an executive producer on the project. A long-time favourite of many a genre fan, and quite simply one of the most iconic names in horror, Carpenter has sadly been very quiet over the last few years. Having delivered a whole host of genre classics from the mid-70s until the mid-90s, the turn of the millennium has seen Carpenter’s output kept to a minimum, with only 2001’s GHOSTS OF MARS, two episodes of MASTERS OF HORROR, and 2010’s enjoyable THE WARD to speak of. In case you’ve been living under a rock or are a non-genre fan who happened to stumble upon this website, this is a man who gave audiences the likes of DARK STAR, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, HALLOWEEN, THE FOG, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THE THING, CHRISTINE, STAR MAN, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, THEY LIVE, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED and VAMPIRES. Despite giving audiences some truly wonderful all-time classics of the genre, Carpenter did revisit Snake Plissken for 1996’s poorly-received ESCAPE FROM L.A., but the character’s not been seen from on the big screen since.

The basic notion of Carpenter’s 1981 ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK saw Kurt Russell donning an eye-patch and spewing out some of the most machismo-heavy dialogue known to man, all accompanied by a classic Carpenter score. Russell’s Plissken is an effortlessly cool convict who is sent by officials into a maximum security prison wasteland that was formally Manhattan. His mission is to rescue Donal Pleasance’s President and save the day. A remake has been on the cards for a while, with Studio Canal and New Line Cinema both previously planning a redo before 20th Century Fox picked up the rights.

As far as the remake goes, there’s no director or star attached at this point, although names previously rumoured to be up for the Plissken gig were Tom Hardy, Jon Bernthal, Dan Stevens, and Charlie Hunnam. It was also suggested that the redo will be about Snake leading a ragtag group through New York on a mission to rescue the President, with Plissken also believed to be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder throughout the film.

Whilst we’re still not exactly on board with the idea of remaking such a long-time favourite of all here at STARBURST, the inclusion of John Carpenter, even as just an executive producer, does put us a little at ease on the idea. Still, we’d rather it just didn’t happen if truth be known.

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