Leigh Whannell Tapped to Write Escape from New York Remake
It would appear there is new life to this remake of the John Carpenter classic after all.
By Chris Morse
It looks like the long-discussed remake of Escape from New York is moving forward after all and Fox has chosen Saw writer/actor and all-around filmmaker Leigh Whannell to write the script. This news was revealed by The Hollywood Reporter and comes the same week as the announcement that Whannell would write and direct The Invisible Man for Universal Pictures.
There has been talk of remaking John Carpenter's 1981 classic for several years now, with Robert Rodriguez on board to direct the most recent iteration of the project, but Fox seems to be hitting the reset switch once more with this latest announcement. Whannell has not yet been tapped to direct the remake, but the door reportedly remains open to that possibility.
This comes during an era of revisiting classic films or series with a premium touch, such as the work CBS is doing by bringing back The Twilight Zone and taking on Stephen King's The Stand. Yet, it would appear studios are sparing no expense trying to recapture that old magic by bringing on big names and big budgets, as opposed to simply cashing in on high-profile franchise rights alone. Whether these strategies will pay off in quality, however, remains to be seen.
According to the report, Whannell wants to bring new ideas to the table while retaining key elements from the original, which will likely honor Carpenter with a handful of throwbacks to his work, and avoid taking the same "bloated" remake path as films such as Robocop and Total Recall.
Although it sounds promising, we've certainly been down this road before with respect to remaking Escape from New York. Whether this version of the project will eventually make it to the big screen remains to be seen, but we'll certainly keep you posted on all the latest here on Dead Entertainment.
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