Abigail directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin of Radio Silence have confirmed that they are no longer directing the reboot of John Carpenter‘s Escape From New York.
“We are not, unfortunately,” Gillett said in response to a question by ComicBook.com about the status of the Escape prequel. “I think titles like that bounce around for a while and I think they’ve tried to get that out of the blocks a few times. I think it’s just ultimately a tricky rights issue thing. There’s a clock on it and we just weren’t in a position to make the clock, ultimately. But who knows? I think, in hindsight, it feels crazy that we would think we would, post-Scream, step into a John Carpenter franchise. You never know. There’s still interest in it and we’ve had a few conversations about it but we’re not attached in any official capacity.”
Released in 1981, Escape From New York starred Kurt Russell as futuristic outlaw Snake Plissken who gets enlisted by the police to infiltrate a supermax prison-set Manhattan to rescue the U.S. President. A sleeper hit at the time of release, Escape found growing popularity on home video and cable during the ’80s. A commercially unsuccessful sequel, Escape from L.A., was released in 1996 reuniting Russell and director Carpenter. Additionally, the movie spawned two comic book lines by CrossGen in 2003 and BOOM! Studios in 2014.
Failed attempts to remake Escape From New York
Prior to Radio Silence’s involvement, efforts to revive Escape From New York have started and stalled since 2007. New Line Cinema initially had the remake rights with directors such as Len Wiseman and Brett Ratner attached. When their remake plans fell through, the rights were handed over to Fox. In 2017, Robert Rodriguez signed on to the project with Carpenter attached to produce. Despite scripts written by Leigh Whannell and Neil Cross, the project never progressed further with Rodriguez.
While the future of the Escape reboot remains in limbo, one thing certain is that Wyatt Russell, son of the original star, has no plans to step into Snake Plissken’s shoes. “Although that’s very kind, that will not be happening,” Russell said to Esquire. “There will be no Snake reboot from me, that’s like career suicide 101. That’s like what not to do. I don’t know if anybody else could be Snake Plissken. Good luck, go get ’em, I sincerely wish you the best of luck. I just don’t know how it’s possible. And for me, if I really wanted to get people sending me hate mail, I think that’s what I should do. I will not be ever doing anything like that.”
