Well, it had all gone nice and quiet on the much-discussed Escape from New York remake – so much so, we thought 20th Century Fox may have decided against the idea – but now comes word on a director being in talks for the redo.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Robert Rodriguez is now in talks with the studio to helm this impending remake of a true cult classic. Rodriguez will be best known to genre fans for the likes of the El Mariachi Trilogy, From Dusk Till Dawn, the Spy Kids franchise, the Sin City movies, Planet Terror, and the Machete pictures. If you want our thoughts, remaking Escape from New York is just pointless, unnecessary, and, well, just pointless and unnecessary – although we are certainly fans of Rodriguez here at Moonbase Alpha.

John Carpenter’s 1981 movie is absolutely flawless, and it remains a classic of its time and an all-time favourite of many a genre fan. Starring Kurt Russell at his charismatic and cool best as badass, eyepatch-adorned Snake Plissken, the original still holds up perfectly to this day (well, bar a few dated pieces of SFX work). Plot-wise, Escape from New York was set in the far off future of 1997(!) at a time when Manhattan island had been turned into a rough-and-ready maximum security prison. With Donald Pleasence’s President trapped in the city, the uber-cool and anti-authority Plissken (call me Snake…) is sent in to rescue Pleasence’s Prez.

Escape from New York was, of course, followed by Escape from L.A. in 1996 – a movie that itself was largely a redo of what we’d seen in New York, and an effort that was sadly a tad disappointing for numerous reasons.

For this upcoming remake, John Carpenter is already on board as an executive producer, and Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman of The Picture Co. are serving as producers. Luther creator Neil Cross is signed up to pen the screenplay, with the current plan to relaunch Escape from New York into a cinematic franchise that is planned to mirror what has happened with the redone Planet of the Apes series. And in fairness, with Apes we thought it was a ridiculous idea to reboot that franchise, yet the two movies to date have been absolutely phenomenal, and we’re now all eagerly awaiting Matt Reeves’ War for the Planet of the Apes (set for release this July).

Previously, the likes of Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam, Mad Max: Fury Road’s Tom Hardy, The Expendables’ Jason Statham, and the current live-action depiction of the Punisher, Jon Bernthal, were said to be the favourites to land the Snake Plissken gig for the Escape from New York remake.

As ever, expect more on all of this as and when it develops.