Some folks may have heard that Snake Plissken is dead, but Zack Snyder is not one of them.
The singular filmmaker behind 300 and Zack Snyder’s Justice League has come aboard to write and direct a reimagining of Escape from New York, the classic dystopian action movie from John Carpenter that introduced audiences to the cool, eye-patch-wearing, cobra-tatted anti-hero, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
The feature project is being put together and will be taken out to market in the coming weeks, and marks the first concrete steps of getting an Escape from New York movie up and going in years. And the intent is to release the feature theatrically, according to sources.
The Picture Company partners Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman will produce through their overall deal with StudioCanal, which along with Carpenter, controls the underlying rights to the property.
Snyder will also produce, alongside his Stone Quarry production company partners Deborah Snyder and Wesley Coller. Carpenter is also involved with update, serving as executive producer.
StudioCanal had no comment.
The original 1981 movie was set in a future (then 1997) where Manhattan had been turned into an island-sized maximum-security prison. When the President of the United States crash lands into the decaying city, with sensitive information that could change the world, former military hero-turned-outlaw Plissken is coerced into rescuing man and has to face gangs, the army, and ex-associates in order to survive.
The movie starred Kurt Russell as Plissken and also featured Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, Donald Pleasance, Harry Dean Stanton and Adrienne Barbeau. Carpenter made a sequel in 1996 titled Escape from L.A.
Snyder’s take on the material is being kept in the briefcase, but it is known that Snyder aims to make a more down and dirty movie, using plenty of practical effects or locations like he did when he remade Dawn of the Dead as his feature debut, than something more overtly slick, such as his later superhero hits, including Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Hollywood has been attempting to mount a redo for years, but it’s been tricky to make anything stick. New Line has the rights for a period that saw Len Wiseman, Brett Ratner and Breck Eisner among those playing musical director chairs and Gerard Butler attached to play Plissken. Robert Rodriguez was attached to direct a version when the rights were with 20th Century Fox in 2017, as was Leigh Whannell. Radio Silence was involved with a more recent incarnation.
StudioCanal has made Escape from New York a priority for the company and both CEO and Canal+ chief content officer Anna Marsh and executive vp of global marketing and distribution Hugh Spearing mentioned it as part of their presentation at this year’s CinemaCon. The company is trying to establish itself as a franchise player with its Paddington movies and recent Evil Dead movies.
StudioCanal has had a long partnership with Picture Company, producing such action movies as Gunpowder Milkshake and Liam Neeson’s Non-Stop. Picture Company is currently in production in Los Angeles on Tyrant, a culinary thriller that stars Charlize Theron and Julia Garner, for Amazon MGM, and is in prep for Will Smith action thriller Supermax, also for Amazon MGM, which will shoot in August. Picture Company was also a producer on Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, which garnered eight Oscar nominations.
Snyder is in the midst of taking a sidestep from zombies, superheroes and starships, the genres that made him one of the town’s biggest filmmakers, and is in post-production on his long-in-the works passion project The Last Photograph, an indie drama set in the South American mountains.
He is repped by CAA and Sloane Offer.
Escape From New York, from left, Harry Dean Stanton, Kurt Russell, Adrienne Barbeau, 1981.
AVCO Embassy Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
