In A New York State Of Mind

Those plans for a remake of Escape from New York are moving forward now that the flick has found a home...



Dave McNary of Variety:

New Line has won the bidding war for a remake of "Escape From New York," with "300" star Gerard Butler attached and Neal Moritz producing through his Original Films banner.

Minimajor closed the deal Thursday, three days after CAA [who represent Butler] began shopping the package to style studios in the wake of Butler's emergence as a rising star, thanks to last weekend's boffo launch of "300"

"Black Hawk Down" scribe Ken Nolan is attached to pen the script. Exec producers include Original's Ori Marmur; Ron Halpern and Frederic Sichler of Canal Plus, which held the remake rights; and John Carpenter, who directed the original 1981[movie]...

Butler would portray Snake Plissken, the convict and war hero who's sent into a futuristic New York City -- which has been turned into a giant maximum security prison -- to rescue the president of the U.S. after his plane is knocked down by terrorists. The original was set in 1998.

Kurt Russell played Plissken in the original pic and again in Carpenter's 1996 sequel "Escape From Los Angeles"...

At least John Carpenter is acting a one of the film's producers--That makes me feel a bit better about this unnecessary do-over. As always, curiosity will most likely outweigh my dismay, once I see some footage.