Escape From New York Remake Lands at Fox

After years of rumors, Snake is back

Threatened for the better part of a decade, the remake of John Carpenter’s seminal 1981 classic Escape From New York is finally on its way, according to Deadline. Fox has won a bid for the remake rights and Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman’s The Picture Company will handle producing duties. John Carpenter, the director of the original, will executive-produce.

A dystopian action-thriller about a surly, one-eyed criminal forcibly dispatched into a walled-off, maximum-security version of the Big Apple to rescue the President, who is being held hostage by inmates after Air Force One crash-lands inside, Escape has become a cult-movie staple in the decades since its release, marking an early high point in Carpenter’s directing career and making an icon out of Kurt Russell’s antihero, Snake Plissken.

Previous overtures toward remaking Snake have included the likes of Gerard Butler, who entered into serious talks for the role back in 2007, as well as rumors of Dan Stevens, Charlie Hunnam and Jon Bernthal being contenders more recently. Directors discussed for the gig have included Len Wiseman, Brett Ratner and Breck Eisner. As of yet, no one is attached to this latest incarnation.

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