The grimy, dystopian setting of Manhattan’s prison landscape was born in the aptly named 1981 film, Escape from New York. New York’s shimmering metallic giants that rise like sky-engulfing behemoths above Western Civilization’s artistic and corporate capital have been reimagined as the bars of the heavily fortified maximum-security prison that defined the film’s landscape. by John Carpenter. Now standing as a definitive classic cult edifice, Escape from New York asks to be reborn in the modern world of gore and horror.
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John Carpenter Escape from New York Gets a reboot
The trio of filmmakers that make up the Radio Silence collective recently announced that Kurt Russell’s 1981 film, Escape from New York will be next in their list of projects subject to a reboot. Consisting of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett and Chad Villella, Radio Silence will direct and produce the reboot with supervision from Steve Asbell and JR Young of 20th Century Studios. The Picture Company will help produce the reboot while Studiocanal owns the film’s distribution rights.
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So far, no cast or lead writer has been announced for Escape from New York and given the strict regulations of the MPAA in recent years, it is unclear to what extent the reboot will serve to emulate the original John Carpenter film. However, the trio of Radio Silence filmmakers are known for their expertise in the horror, sci-fi and adventure thriller genres. As far as making a classic horror movie goes, the 1981 film couldn’t have fallen into better hands.
Kurt Russell’s Legacy as Snake Plissken in the 1981 Classic
The one-eyed sensation Snake Plissken who strolled onto ’80s screens as a modernist anti-hero left a legacy that couldn’t be matched in the sequel and subsequent spin-offs to Escape from New York. Attempts to reboot the original failed majestically, and in the decade that followed, Hollywood emerged from its gory slasher era for a golden age of fantasy epics and superhero adventures. 40 years later, the cyclical return to the past continues in the Escape from New York which will also see the 1981 film’s original writer and director John Carpenter return as executive producer.
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In the mid-1970s, the unprecedented incendiary political scandal that rocked the American landscape and forced Nixon to resign provided the fundamental inspiration for Carpenter’s film. Kurt Russell’s film went on to rake in $25.2 million against its $6 million budget, becoming an instant critical and commercial success, and over time it earned a reputation as a definitive cult classic due of its unsavory depiction of unchecked violence, a bleak future, and bloody deaths.
The totally dystopian film, influenced in part by Brian Garfield death wish (1972), will be a massive undertaking by Radio Silence. A reimagining of the R-rated classic will be an homage to the 1981 societal horror metaphor that manages to still remain relevant to this day.
Source: Deadline