I am now certain that John Carpenter made a Pact With the Devil. With this evil bargain Carpenter gained an awesome career making classic after classic in the 70s and 80s. Satan, on the other hand, gained remake rights to all of these classics, which he is now selling off to the studios. With a just announced redo of Escape From New York added to the list, all five of Carpenter’s features from 1976 (Assault on Precinct 13) to 1982 (The Thing) have been or are being remade. Of course, The Thing doesn’t exactly count since Carpenter’s was already a remake, but if I hear about an update of Christine or Dark Star, I’m going to start getting worried about my most beloved Carpenter classic, Big Trouble in Little China.
The new Escape From New York is being written by Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) but no director is attached yet. Gerard Butler, a hot property now that 300 is a hit, is in negotiations for the role of patch-eyed Snake Plissken, who was played by Kurt Russell in the original as well as the sequel, Escape From L.A. (I guess he definitely won’t be doing Escape From Earth now.) The film, for those of you who aren’t familiar, is set in Manhattan in the future (1997 in the original) after the whole borough has been turned into a maximum security prison. When the President of the United States crash lands on the island, his rescue is put in the hands of Snake, a prisoner who is offered freedom if his mission is successful.