Escape from New York
Encyclopedia
Escape from New York is a 1981 American science fiction
action film
directed and scored by John Carpenter
. He co-wrote the screenplay with Nick Castle
. The film is set in the near future in a crime-ridden United States
that has converted Manhattan Island in New York City
into a maximum security prison. Ex-soldier Snake Plissken
(Kurt Russell
) is given 24 hours to find the President of the United States
, who has been captured after the crash of Air Force One
.
Carpenter wrote the film in the mid-1970s as a reaction to the Watergate scandal
, but proved incapable of articulating how the film related to the scandal. After the success of Halloween
, he had enough influence to get the film made and shot most of it in St. Louis, Missouri
.
The film's total budget was estimated to be US$
6 million. It was a commercial hit, grossing over $50 million worldwide. It has since become a cult film
. A sequel, Escape from L.A.
, was released in 1996.
n 1997, crime in the United States has increased 400%, so in 1988 Manhattan was turned into a giant maximum security prison. Surrounded by a 50 foot-tall containment wall and mines on all bridges and patrolled waterways, nobody is allowed in the prison, not even guards.
Traveling to a three-way summit between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, Air Force One
is hijacked by a terrorist disguised as a stewardess. The plane crashes into Manhattan, but the President (Donald Pleasence
) makes it to an escape pod
and survives. The inmates find him and take him hostage, and order all police officers to leave Manhattan immediately or they will kill him.
Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef
) offers a deal to special forces
soldier turned criminal "Snake" Plissken (Kurt Russell
): If he rescues the president and retrieves a secret cassette tape within 24 hours, Hauk will give him a full pardon. When Plissken reluctantly agrees to attempt the rescue, Hauk has him injected with microscopic explosives that will rupture his carotid arteries in 24 hours. The explosives can only be defused in the last 15 minutes before they detonate, ensuring that Snake does not abandon his mission. If he returns with the President and the tape in time for the summit, Hauk will save him.
Snake lands atop the World Trade Center
in a glider
, and locates the plane wreckage and escape pod. He tracks the President's life-monitor bracelet signal to a theater, only to find it on the wrist of an old man. He meets an inmate nicknamed "Cabbie" (Ernest Borgnine
), who takes Snake to see Harold "Brain" Hellman (Harry Dean Stanton
), who has made the New York Public Library
his personal fortress. Brain, who knows Snake, tells him that the self-proclaimed "Duke of New York" (Isaac Hayes
), has the President and plans to lead a mass escape across the mined and heavily guarded 69th Street Bridge, using the President as a human shield. Snake forces Brain and his girlfriend Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau
) to lead him to the Duke's compound at Grand Central Station. Snake finds the President in a railroad car, but he is captured by the Duke's men.
While Snake is forced to fight with a giant, Brain and Maggie trick the Duke's men into letting them see the President. They kill the guards, free the President and flee. When the Duke learns of this, he is furious, and rounds up his gang to chase them down. In the confusion, Snake slips away and manages to catch up with Brain, Maggie, and the President. They find Cabbie, and in his cab, head for the bridge. When Cabbie reveals that he has the nuclear fusion tape, the President demands it, but Snake takes it.
With the Duke chasing in another car, Snake and the others drive over the mine-strewn bridge. The cab is destroyed by a land mine and Cabbie is killed. As they flee on foot, Brain is killed by a mine and Maggie refuses to leave him. Snake and the President reach the wall, and the guards raise the President on a rope. The Duke attacks Snake, but the President shoots and kills the Duke. Snake is lifted to safety, and the explosives are deactivated with seconds to spare.
As the President prepares for a televised speech, he thanks Snake for saving him. Snake asks him how he feels about the people who died saving his life, but the President only offers half-hearted regret. The President's speech commences and he offers the content of the cassette to the summit; but to the President's embarrassment, the tape has been switched for a cassette of the swing song "Bandstand Boogie," Cabbie's favorite song. After Snake is pardoned, he leaves the prison, tearing apart the President's tape as he leaves.
. Carpenter said, "The whole feeling of the nation was one of real cynicism about the President. I wrote the screenplay and no studio wanted to make it" because, according to Carpenter, "it was too violent, too scary, too weird." He had been inspired by the film Death Wish
which was very popular at the time. He did not agree with this film's philosophy but liked how it conveyed "the sense of New York as a kind of jungle, and I wanted to make a science fiction film along these lines".
or Tommy Lee Jones
to play the role of "Snake" Plissken to Carpenter's choice of Kurt Russell, who was trying to overcome his "lightweight" screen image which arose from his roles in several Disney
comedies. Carpenter refused to cast Bronson on the grounds that he was too old, and because he worried that he could lose directorial control over the picture with an experienced actor. At the time, Russell described his character as "a mercenary, and his style of fighting is a combination of Bruce Lee
, The Exterminator
, and Darth Vader
, with Eastwood
's vocal-ness." All that matters to Snake, according to the actor, is "the next 60 seconds. Living for exactly that next minute is all there is."
but no one wanted to hire him as a director, so he assumed that he would make it in Hollywood as a screenwriter. The filmmaker went on to do other films with the intention of making Escape later. After the success of Halloween
, Avco-Embassy signed him and producer Debra Hill
to a two-picture deal. The first film from this contract was The Fog
. Initially, the second film that he was going to make to finish the contract was The Philadelphia Experiment, but because of script-writing problems, Carpenter rejected it in favor of this project. However, Carpenter felt that something was missing and recalls, "This was basically a straight action film. And at one point, I realized it really doesn't have this kind of crazy humor that people from New York would expect to see." He brought in Nick Castle
, a friend from his film school days at University of Southern California
who played "The Shape" in Halloween
. Castle invented the Cabbie character and came up with the film's ending.
The film's setting proved to be a potential problem for Carpenter, who needed to create a decaying, semi-destroyed version of New York City on only a shoe-string budget. He and the film's production designer Joe Alves
rejected shooting on location in New York City because it would be too hard to make it look like a destroyed city. Carpenter suggested shooting on a movie back lot but Alves nixed that idea "because the texture of a real street is not like a back lot." They sent Barry Bernardi, their location manager (and associate producer), "on a sort of all-expense-paid trip across the country looking for the worst city in America," producer Debra Hill remembers.
Bernardi suggested East St. Louis, Illinois
, because it was filled with old buildings "that exist in New York now, and [that] have that seedy run-down quality" that the team was looking for. East St. Louis, sitting across the Mississippi River from the more prosperous St. Louis, Missouri
, had entire neighborhoods burned out in 1976 during a massive urban fire. Hill said in an interview, "block after block was burnt-out rubble. In some places there was absolutely nothing, so that you could see three and four blocks away." As well, Alves found an old bridge
to double for the "69th St. Bridge". The filmmaker purchased the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge
for one dollar from the government and then gave it back to them for a dollar, "so that they wouldn't have any liability," Hill remembers. Locations across the river in St. Louis, Missouri
were used, including Union Station and the Fox Theater, both of which have since been renovated.
The gladiatorial fight to the death scene between Snake and Slag (played by professional wrestler Ox Baker
) was filmed in the Grand Hall at St. Louis Union Station
. Russell has stated, "That day was a nightmare. All I did was swing a [spiked] bat at that guy and get swung at in return. He threw a trash can in my face about five times ... I could have wound up in pretty bad shape." In addition to shooting on location in St. Louis, Carpenter shot parts of the film in Los Angeles
. Various interior scenes were shot on a soundstage; the final scenes were shot at the Sepulveda Dam
, in Sherman Oaks. New York served as a location, as did Atlanta, in order to utilize their then futuristic-looking rapid-transit system
.
When it came to shooting in New York City Carpenter managed to persuade the city officials to grant access to Liberty Island
. "We were the first film company in history allowed to shoot on Liberty Island at the Statue of Liberty
at night. They let us have the whole island to ourselves. We were lucky. It wasn't easy to get that initial permission. They'd had a bombing three months earlier and were worried about trouble."
Carpenter was interested in creating two distinct looks for the movie. "One is the police state, high tech, lots of neon, a United States dominated by underground computers. That was easy to shoot compared to the Manhattan Island prison sequences which had few lights, mainly torch lights, like feudal England."
Certain matte paintings
were rendered by James Cameron
, who was at the time a special effects artist with Roger Corman's
New World Pictures
.
As Snake pilots the glider into the city there are three screens on his control panel displaying wireframe animations of the landing target on the World Trade Center and surrounding buildings. What appears on those screens was not computer generated. Carpenter wanted hi-tech computer graphics which were very expensive at the time, even for such a simple animation. To get the animation he wanted the effects crew filmed the miniature model set of New York City they used for other scenes under black light
with reflective tape placed along every edge of the model buildings. Only the tape shows up and appears to be a 3D wireframe animation.
. Newsweek
magazine commented on Carpenter, saying, "[He has a] deeply ingrained B-movie sensibility - which is both his strength and limitation. He does clean work, but settles for too little. He uses Russell well, however." In Time
magazine, Richard Corliss
wrote, "John Carpenter is offering this summer's moviegoers a rare opportunity: to escape from the air-conditioned torpor of ordinary entertainment into the hothouse humidity of their own paranoia. It's a trip worth taking." Vincent Canby
, in his review for the New York Times, wrote, "[The film] is not to be analyzed too solemnly, though. It's a toughly told, very tall tale, one of the best escape (and escapist) movies of the season." However, in his review for the Chicago Reader, Dave Kehr, wrote "it fails to satisfy–it gives us too little of too much."
Cyberpunk
pioneer William Gibson
credits the film as an influence on his novel Neuromancer
. "I was intrigued by the exchange in one of the opening scenes where the Warden says to Snake 'You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, didn't you?' It turns out to be just a throwaway line, but for a moment it worked like the best SF where a casual reference can imply a lot." Popular videogame director Hideo Kojima
has referred to the movie frequently as an influence on his work, in particular the Metal Gear series. The character Solid Snake
is strongly based on Snake Plissken. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Snake actually uses the alias "Pliskin" to hide his real identity during the game. J.J. Abrams, producer of the 2008 film Cloverfield
, mentioned that a scene in his film, which shows the head of the Statue of Liberty
crashing into a New York street, was inspired by the poster for Escape from New York. Empire
magazine ranked Snake Plissken #71 in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll.
American Film Institute
Lists
(USA), and once by Momentum Pictures (UK). One MGM release is a barebones edition containing just the theatrical trailer. Another version is the Collector's Edition, a two-disc set featuring a remastered transfer with a 5.1 audio track, two commentaries (one by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell, another by producer Debra Hill
and Joe Alves), a making-of featurette, the first issue of a comic book series titled John Carpenter's Snake Plissken Chronicles, and a ten-minute deleted opening sequence.
MGM's special edition of the 1981 film was not released until 2003 because the original negative had disappeared. The workprint containing deleted scenes finally turned up in the Hutchinson, Kansas salt mine film depository. The excised scenes feature Snake Plissken robbing a bank, introducing the character of Plissken and establishing a backstory. Director John Carpenter decided to add the original scenes into the special edition release as an extra only: "After we screened the rough cut, we realized that the movie didn't really start until Snake got to New York. It wasn't necessary to show what sent him there." The film has been released on the UMD format for Sony's PlayStation Portable.
published a movie tie-in novelization
written by Mike McQuay
that adopts a lean, humorous style reminiscent of the film. The novel is significant because it includes scenes that were cut out of the film, such as the Federal Reserve Depository robbery that results in Snake's incarceration. The novel provides motivation and backstory to Snake and Hauk — both disillusioned war veterans — deepening their relationship that was only hinted at it in the film. The novel explains how Snake lost his eye during the Battle for Leningrad
in World War III, how Hauk became warden of New York, and Hauk's quest to find his crazy son who lives somewhere in the prison. The novel fleshes out the world that these characters exist in, at times presenting a future even bleaker than the one depicted in the film. The book explains that the west coast is a no-man's land, and the country's population is gradually being driven crazy by nerve gas as a result of World War III.
was close to signing a deal where he would play Snake Plissken in a remake of Carpenter's movie. Neal Moritz was to produce and Ken Nolan was to write the screenplay which would combine an original story for Plissken with the story from the 1981 movie, although Carpenter has hinted that the film might be a prequel.
New Line Cinema
(one-time video distributor of the original) acquired the rights to the film from co-rights holder StudioCanal
, who will control the European rights, and Carpenter, who will serve as an executive producer and said, "Snake is one of my fondest creations. Kurt Russell did an incredible job, and it would be fun to see someone else try." Russell has commented on the remake and on the casting of Butler as Plissken, saying, "I will say that when I was told who was going to play Snake Plissken, my initial reaction was 'Oh, man!' [Russell winces]. I do think that character was quintessentially one thing. And that is, American." Len Wiseman
was attached to direct but he dropped out of the project and rumors were that Brett Ratner
would helm the film. Since Ratner has not formally committed to the new project, the identity of the director is as yet unclear. The studio has brought Jonathan Mostow
in to rewrite, with an option to direct. In addition, Gerard Butler has bowed out of his role claiming "creative differences". Allan Loeb wrote currently the script for the New Line Cinema project. Breck Eisner has been announced as the director of the remake. The film will not feature a post apocalyptic New York like the original did, rather the New York in the new film will have been built after the bomb.In November of 2010, reports cited Jeremy Renner
as being in talks to play Snake Plissken.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
action film
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
directed and scored by John Carpenter
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
. He co-wrote the screenplay with Nick Castle
Nick Castle
Nick Castle is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his role as Michael Myers in Halloween. He also co-wrote Escape from New York with his friend, John Carpenter.-Early life:...
. The film is set in the near future in a crime-ridden United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
that has converted Manhattan Island in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
into a maximum security prison. Ex-soldier Snake Plissken
Snake Plissken
S.D. Bob "Snake" Plissken is a fictional character in John Carpenter's films Escape from New York and Escape from L.A., played by Kurt Russell. He is an ex-special forces commando/war hero in World War III turned criminal...
(Kurt Russell
Kurt Russell
Kurt Vogel Russell is an American television and film actor. His first acting roles were as a child in television series, including a lead role in the Western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters...
) is given 24 hours to find the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, who has been captured after the crash of Air Force One
Air Force One
Air Force One is the official air traffic control call sign of any United States Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States. In common parlance the term refers to those Air Force aircraft whose primary mission is to transport the president; however, any U.S. Air Force aircraft...
.
Carpenter wrote the film in the mid-1970s as a reaction to the Watergate scandal
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
, but proved incapable of articulating how the film related to the scandal. After the success of Halloween
Halloween (1978 film)
Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror film directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise. The film is set in the fictional midwestern...
, he had enough influence to get the film made and shot most of it in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
.
The film's total budget was estimated to be US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
6 million. It was a commercial hit, grossing over $50 million worldwide. It has since become a cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
. A sequel, Escape from L.A.
Escape from L.A.
Escape From L.A. is a 1996 film directed by John Carpenter. The sequel to the action film Escape from New York, the film follows former war hero Snake Plissken, played by Kurt Russell...
, was released in 1996.
Plot
In a dystopiaDystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n 1997, crime in the United States has increased 400%, so in 1988 Manhattan was turned into a giant maximum security prison. Surrounded by a 50 foot-tall containment wall and mines on all bridges and patrolled waterways, nobody is allowed in the prison, not even guards.
Traveling to a three-way summit between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, Air Force One
Air Force One
Air Force One is the official air traffic control call sign of any United States Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States. In common parlance the term refers to those Air Force aircraft whose primary mission is to transport the president; however, any U.S. Air Force aircraft...
is hijacked by a terrorist disguised as a stewardess. The plane crashes into Manhattan, but the President (Donald Pleasence
Donald Pleasence
Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...
) makes it to an escape pod
Escape pod
An escape pod is a capsule or craft used to escape a vessel in an emergency, usually only big enough for one person. An escape ship is a larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose...
and survives. The inmates find him and take him hostage, and order all police officers to leave Manhattan immediately or they will kill him.
Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef
Lee Van Cleef
Lee Van Cleef was an American film actor who appeared mostly in Western and action pictures. His sharp features and piercing eyes led to his being cast as a villain in scores of films such as High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Good The Bad and the Ugly.-Early life:Van Cleef was...
) offers a deal to special forces
United States Special Operations Forces
United States Special Operations Forces under United States Special Operations Command are active and reserve component forces of U.S. Military...
soldier turned criminal "Snake" Plissken (Kurt Russell
Kurt Russell
Kurt Vogel Russell is an American television and film actor. His first acting roles were as a child in television series, including a lead role in the Western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters...
): If he rescues the president and retrieves a secret cassette tape within 24 hours, Hauk will give him a full pardon. When Plissken reluctantly agrees to attempt the rescue, Hauk has him injected with microscopic explosives that will rupture his carotid arteries in 24 hours. The explosives can only be defused in the last 15 minutes before they detonate, ensuring that Snake does not abandon his mission. If he returns with the President and the tape in time for the summit, Hauk will save him.
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
in a glider
Glider aircraft
Glider aircraft are heavier-than-air craft that are supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against their lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. Mostly these types of aircraft are intended for routine operation without engines, though engine failure can...
, and locates the plane wreckage and escape pod. He tracks the President's life-monitor bracelet signal to a theater, only to find it on the wrist of an old man. He meets an inmate nicknamed "Cabbie" (Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
), who takes Snake to see Harold "Brain" Hellman (Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly's Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo Man, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge...
), who has made the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
his personal fortress. Brain, who knows Snake, tells him that the self-proclaimed "Duke of New York" (Isaac Hayes
Isaac Hayes
Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. was an American songwriter, musician, singer and actor. Hayes was one of the creative influences behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the...
), has the President and plans to lead a mass escape across the mined and heavily guarded 69th Street Bridge, using the President as a human shield. Snake forces Brain and his girlfriend Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau
Adrienne Barbeau
Adrienne Jo Barbeau is an American actress and the author of three books. Barbeau came to prominence in the 1970s as Broadway's original Rizzo in the musical Grease, and as Carol Traynor, the divorced daughter of Maude Findlay in the sitcom Maude...
) to lead him to the Duke's compound at Grand Central Station. Snake finds the President in a railroad car, but he is captured by the Duke's men.
While Snake is forced to fight with a giant, Brain and Maggie trick the Duke's men into letting them see the President. They kill the guards, free the President and flee. When the Duke learns of this, he is furious, and rounds up his gang to chase them down. In the confusion, Snake slips away and manages to catch up with Brain, Maggie, and the President. They find Cabbie, and in his cab, head for the bridge. When Cabbie reveals that he has the nuclear fusion tape, the President demands it, but Snake takes it.
With the Duke chasing in another car, Snake and the others drive over the mine-strewn bridge. The cab is destroyed by a land mine and Cabbie is killed. As they flee on foot, Brain is killed by a mine and Maggie refuses to leave him. Snake and the President reach the wall, and the guards raise the President on a rope. The Duke attacks Snake, but the President shoots and kills the Duke. Snake is lifted to safety, and the explosives are deactivated with seconds to spare.
As the President prepares for a televised speech, he thanks Snake for saving him. Snake asks him how he feels about the people who died saving his life, but the President only offers half-hearted regret. The President's speech commences and he offers the content of the cassette to the summit; but to the President's embarrassment, the tape has been switched for a cassette of the swing song "Bandstand Boogie," Cabbie's favorite song. After Snake is pardoned, he leaves the prison, tearing apart the President's tape as he leaves.
Cast
- Kurt RussellKurt RussellKurt Vogel Russell is an American television and film actor. His first acting roles were as a child in television series, including a lead role in the Western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters...
as Snake PlisskenSnake PlisskenS.D. Bob "Snake" Plissken is a fictional character in John Carpenter's films Escape from New York and Escape from L.A., played by Kurt Russell. He is an ex-special forces commando/war hero in World War III turned criminal... - Lee Van CleefLee Van CleefLee Van Cleef was an American film actor who appeared mostly in Western and action pictures. His sharp features and piercing eyes led to his being cast as a villain in scores of films such as High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Good The Bad and the Ugly.-Early life:Van Cleef was...
as Bob Hauk - Ernest BorgnineErnest BorgnineErnest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
as Cabbie - Donald PleasenceDonald PleasenceSir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades...
as President of the United StatesPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.... - Isaac HayesIsaac HayesIsaac Lee Hayes, Jr. was an American songwriter, musician, singer and actor. Hayes was one of the creative influences behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the...
as The Duke of New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and... - Harry Dean StantonHarry Dean StantonHarry Dean Stanton is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly's Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo Man, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge...
as Harold "Brain" Hellman - Adrienne BarbeauAdrienne BarbeauAdrienne Jo Barbeau is an American actress and the author of three books. Barbeau came to prominence in the 1970s as Broadway's original Rizzo in the musical Grease, and as Carol Traynor, the divorced daughter of Maude Findlay in the sitcom Maude...
as Maggie - Tom AtkinsTom Atkins (actor)Tom Atkins is an American television and film actor. He is primarily known for his work in the horror film genre, having worked with writers and directors such as John Carpenter, Stephen King, and George A. Romero...
as Rehme - Charles CyphersCharles CyphersCharles Cyphers is an American actor who has starred in many films and on television. He is known in the horror movie community for his work in the films of John Carpenter, especially his role as Sheriff Leigh Brackett in Carpenter's 1978 hit horror movie Halloween. He reprised this role in the...
as the Secretary of StateUnited States Secretary of StateThe United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence... - Joe UngerJoe UngerJoseph 'Joe' Unger is an American actor who has starred in many films and on television. He is best known for his role in the 1984 horror hit film A Nightmare on Elm Street as Sgt...
as Tayler (deleted scenes only) - Frank DoubledayFrank Doubleday (actor)Frank Doubleday is an American actor whose most notable roles are as villains in several films. Such roles include John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 and John Carpenter's Escape from New York playing the character Romero...
as Romero - John Strobel as Cronenberg
- Season HubleySeason Hubley-Biography:Hubley was born Susan Hubley in New York City, the daughter of Julia Kaul and Grant Shelby Hubley, a writer and entrepreneur. Her brother is actor Whip Hubley....
as The Girl in the Chock full o'NutsChock full o'NutsChock full o’Nuts is a chain of lunch counters in New York City that spawned a brand of coffee.-History:The chain was founded by William Black , an American immigrant who sold nuts in Times Square to theater-goers. In 1926, he opened a store on Broadway and 43rd Street, and began selling coffee and... - Ox BakerOx BakerDouglas A. Baker better known professionally as Ox Baker, is an American former professional wrestler and actor, and was feared for his dreaded finishing move, the Heart Punch, sometimes called the "Hurt Punch", after Baker's famous catchphrase "I love to hurt people!" He has appeared in several...
as Slag, the fighter
Development
Carpenter originally wrote the screenplay for Escape from New York in 1976, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandalWatergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
. Carpenter said, "The whole feeling of the nation was one of real cynicism about the President. I wrote the screenplay and no studio wanted to make it" because, according to Carpenter, "it was too violent, too scary, too weird." He had been inspired by the film Death Wish
Death Wish (film)
Death Wish is a 1974 crime thriller film loosely based on the novel Death Wish by Brian Garfield. The film was directed by Michael Winner and stars Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, a man who becomes a vigilante after his wife is murdered and his daughter is sexually assaulted by muggers.The film was...
which was very popular at the time. He did not agree with this film's philosophy but liked how it conveyed "the sense of New York as a kind of jungle, and I wanted to make a science fiction film along these lines".
Casting
Avco-Embassy Pictures, the film's financial backer, preferred either Charles BronsonCharles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
or Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive....
to play the role of "Snake" Plissken to Carpenter's choice of Kurt Russell, who was trying to overcome his "lightweight" screen image which arose from his roles in several Disney
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
comedies. Carpenter refused to cast Bronson on the grounds that he was too old, and because he worried that he could lose directorial control over the picture with an experienced actor. At the time, Russell described his character as "a mercenary, and his style of fighting is a combination of Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...
, The Exterminator
The Exterminator
The Exterminator is a 1980 action film written, produced and directed by James Glickenhaus and starring Robert Ginty as Vietnam veteran vigilante John Eastland, also known as "The Exterminator", who takes out the street punks and those involved in organized crime when the law fails to do justice.-...
, and Darth Vader
Darth Vader
Darth Vader is a central character in the Star Wars saga, appearing as one of the main antagonists in the original trilogy and as the main protagonist in the prequel trilogy....
, with Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
's vocal-ness." All that matters to Snake, according to the actor, is "the next 60 seconds. Living for exactly that next minute is all there is."
Pre-production
Carpenter had just made Dark StarDark Star (film)
Dark Star is a 1974 American comedic science fiction motion picture directed by John Carpenter and co-written with Dan O'Bannon.-Backstory and plot:...
but no one wanted to hire him as a director, so he assumed that he would make it in Hollywood as a screenwriter. The filmmaker went on to do other films with the intention of making Escape later. After the success of Halloween
Halloween (1978 film)
Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror film directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise. The film is set in the fictional midwestern...
, Avco-Embassy signed him and producer Debra Hill
Debra Hill
Debra Hill was an American screenwriter and film producer, who co-wrote the horror film Halloween, its first sequel Halloween II, and The Fog.-Early life:...
to a two-picture deal. The first film from this contract was The Fog
The Fog
The Fog is a 1980 horror film directed by John Carpenter, who also co-wrote the screenplay and composed the music for the film. It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins and Janet Leigh...
. Initially, the second film that he was going to make to finish the contract was The Philadelphia Experiment, but because of script-writing problems, Carpenter rejected it in favor of this project. However, Carpenter felt that something was missing and recalls, "This was basically a straight action film. And at one point, I realized it really doesn't have this kind of crazy humor that people from New York would expect to see." He brought in Nick Castle
Nick Castle
Nick Castle is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his role as Michael Myers in Halloween. He also co-wrote Escape from New York with his friend, John Carpenter.-Early life:...
, a friend from his film school days at University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
who played "The Shape" in Halloween
Halloween (1978 film)
Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror film directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise. The film is set in the fictional midwestern...
. Castle invented the Cabbie character and came up with the film's ending.
The film's setting proved to be a potential problem for Carpenter, who needed to create a decaying, semi-destroyed version of New York City on only a shoe-string budget. He and the film's production designer Joe Alves
Joe Alves
Joe Alves is an American film production designer, perhaps best known for his work on three of the Jaws films. He directed Jaws 3-D....
rejected shooting on location in New York City because it would be too hard to make it look like a destroyed city. Carpenter suggested shooting on a movie back lot but Alves nixed that idea "because the texture of a real street is not like a back lot." They sent Barry Bernardi, their location manager (and associate producer), "on a sort of all-expense-paid trip across the country looking for the worst city in America," producer Debra Hill remembers.
Bernardi suggested East St. Louis, Illinois
East St. Louis, Illinois
East St. Louis is a city located in St. Clair County, Illinois, USA, directly across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 27,006, less than one-third of its peak of 82,366 in 1950...
, because it was filled with old buildings "that exist in New York now, and [that] have that seedy run-down quality" that the team was looking for. East St. Louis, sitting across the Mississippi River from the more prosperous St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, had entire neighborhoods burned out in 1976 during a massive urban fire. Hill said in an interview, "block after block was burnt-out rubble. In some places there was absolutely nothing, so that you could see three and four blocks away." As well, Alves found an old bridge
Chain of Rocks Bridge
The Chain of Rocks Bridge spans the Mississippi River on the north edge of St. Louis, Missouri. The eastern end of the bridge is on Chouteau Island, , while the western end is on the Missouri shoreline....
to double for the "69th St. Bridge". The filmmaker purchased the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge
Chain of Rocks Bridge
The Chain of Rocks Bridge spans the Mississippi River on the north edge of St. Louis, Missouri. The eastern end of the bridge is on Chouteau Island, , while the western end is on the Missouri shoreline....
for one dollar from the government and then gave it back to them for a dollar, "so that they wouldn't have any liability," Hill remembers. Locations across the river in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
were used, including Union Station and the Fox Theater, both of which have since been renovated.
Production
Carpenter and his crew persuaded the city to shut off the electricity to ten blocks at a time at night. The film was shot from August to November 1980. It was a tough and demanding shoot for the filmmaker as he recalls. "We'd finish shooting at about 6 am and I'd just be going to sleep at 7 when the sun would be coming up. I'd wake up around 5 or 6 pm, depending on whether or not we had dailies, and by the time I got going, the Sun would be setting. So for about two and a half months I never saw daylight, which was really strange."The gladiatorial fight to the death scene between Snake and Slag (played by professional wrestler Ox Baker
Ox Baker
Douglas A. Baker better known professionally as Ox Baker, is an American former professional wrestler and actor, and was feared for his dreaded finishing move, the Heart Punch, sometimes called the "Hurt Punch", after Baker's famous catchphrase "I love to hurt people!" He has appeared in several...
) was filmed in the Grand Hall at St. Louis Union Station
St. Louis Union Station
St. Louis Union Station, a National Historic Landmark, is a passenger train terminal in St. Louis, Missouri. Once the world's largest and busiest train station, it was converted in the early 1980s into a luxury hotel, shopping center, and entertainment complex...
. Russell has stated, "That day was a nightmare. All I did was swing a [spiked] bat at that guy and get swung at in return. He threw a trash can in my face about five times ... I could have wound up in pretty bad shape." In addition to shooting on location in St. Louis, Carpenter shot parts of the film in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Various interior scenes were shot on a soundstage; the final scenes were shot at the Sepulveda Dam
Sepulveda Dam
Located in Los Angeles, California, the Sepulveda Dam is a project of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, built in 1941 to withhold winter flood waters along the Los Angeles River...
, in Sherman Oaks. New York served as a location, as did Atlanta, in order to utilize their then futuristic-looking rapid-transit system
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority or MARTA is the principal rapid-transit system in the Atlanta metropolitan area and the ninth-largest in the United States. Formed in 1971 as strictly a bus system, MARTA operates a network of bus routes linked to a rapid transit system consisting...
.
When it came to shooting in New York City Carpenter managed to persuade the city officials to grant access to Liberty Island
Liberty Island
Liberty Island is a small uninhabited island in New York Harbor in the United States, best known as the location of the Statue of Liberty. Though so called since the turn of the century, the name did not become official until 1956. In 1937, by proclamation 2250, President Franklin D...
. "We were the first film company in history allowed to shoot on Liberty Island at the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
at night. They let us have the whole island to ourselves. We were lucky. It wasn't easy to get that initial permission. They'd had a bombing three months earlier and were worried about trouble."
Carpenter was interested in creating two distinct looks for the movie. "One is the police state, high tech, lots of neon, a United States dominated by underground computers. That was easy to shoot compared to the Manhattan Island prison sequences which had few lights, mainly torch lights, like feudal England."
Matte (filmmaking)
Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image with a background image . In this case, the matte is the background painting...
were rendered by James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
, who was at the time a special effects artist with Roger Corman's
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
New World Pictures
New World Communications
New World Pictures was an independent motion picture and television production company, and later television station owner in the United States from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s...
.
As Snake pilots the glider into the city there are three screens on his control panel displaying wireframe animations of the landing target on the World Trade Center and surrounding buildings. What appears on those screens was not computer generated. Carpenter wanted hi-tech computer graphics which were very expensive at the time, even for such a simple animation. To get the animation he wanted the effects crew filmed the miniature model set of New York City they used for other scenes under black light
Black light
A black light, also referred to as a UV light, ultraviolet light, or Wood's lamp, is a lamp that emits ultraviolet radiation in the long-wave range, and little visible light...
with reflective tape placed along every edge of the model buildings. Only the tape shows up and appears to be a 3D wireframe animation.
Reception
Escape from New York grossed $25.2 million in American theaters in summer 1981 with a comparable gross in the international market, resulting in a $50 million box office, a revenue-production ratio of almost 7:1. The film received generally positive reviews. It received a rating of 81% on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
magazine commented on Carpenter, saying, "[He has a] deeply ingrained B-movie sensibility - which is both his strength and limitation. He does clean work, but settles for too little. He uses Russell well, however." In Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
wrote, "John Carpenter is offering this summer's moviegoers a rare opportunity: to escape from the air-conditioned torpor of ordinary entertainment into the hothouse humidity of their own paranoia. It's a trip worth taking." Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
, in his review for the New York Times, wrote, "[The film] is not to be analyzed too solemnly, though. It's a toughly told, very tall tale, one of the best escape (and escapist) movies of the season." However, in his review for the Chicago Reader, Dave Kehr, wrote "it fails to satisfy–it gives us too little of too much."
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
pioneer William Gibson
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
credits the film as an influence on his novel Neuromancer
Neuromancer
Neuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, a seminal work in the cyberpunk genre and the first winner of the science-fiction "triple crown" — the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award. It was Gibson's debut novel and the beginning of the Sprawl trilogy...
. "I was intrigued by the exchange in one of the opening scenes where the Warden says to Snake 'You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, didn't you?' It turns out to be just a throwaway line, but for a moment it worked like the best SF where a casual reference can imply a lot." Popular videogame director Hideo Kojima
Hideo Kojima
is a Japanese game director originally employed at Konami. He is currently the director of Kojima Productions and was promoted to Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment in early 2011...
has referred to the movie frequently as an influence on his work, in particular the Metal Gear series. The character Solid Snake
Solid Snake
Metal Gear, initially released in 1987, introduces Solid Snake, the rookie recruit of the elite special-forces unit FOXHOUND. Snake is sent by team leader Big Boss into the rogue nation Outer Heaven to rescue his missing teammate Gray Fox and discover who or what the "METAL GEAR" mentioned is, and...
is strongly based on Snake Plissken. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Snake actually uses the alias "Pliskin" to hide his real identity during the game. J.J. Abrams, producer of the 2008 film Cloverfield
Cloverfield
Cloverfield is a 2008 American disaster-monster film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams and written by Drew Goddard.The film follows six young New Yorkers attending a going-away party on the night that a gigantic monster attacks the city...
, mentioned that a scene in his film, which shows the head of the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
crashing into a New York street, was inspired by the poster for Escape from New York. Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
magazine ranked Snake Plissken #71 in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll.
American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
Lists
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills - Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
- Snake Plissken - Nominated Hero
- AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
- Nominated Science Fiction Film
DVD releases
Escape from New York was released on DVD twice by MGMMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
(USA), and once by Momentum Pictures (UK). One MGM release is a barebones edition containing just the theatrical trailer. Another version is the Collector's Edition, a two-disc set featuring a remastered transfer with a 5.1 audio track, two commentaries (one by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell, another by producer Debra Hill
Debra Hill
Debra Hill was an American screenwriter and film producer, who co-wrote the horror film Halloween, its first sequel Halloween II, and The Fog.-Early life:...
and Joe Alves), a making-of featurette, the first issue of a comic book series titled John Carpenter's Snake Plissken Chronicles, and a ten-minute deleted opening sequence.
MGM's special edition of the 1981 film was not released until 2003 because the original negative had disappeared. The workprint containing deleted scenes finally turned up in the Hutchinson, Kansas salt mine film depository. The excised scenes feature Snake Plissken robbing a bank, introducing the character of Plissken and establishing a backstory. Director John Carpenter decided to add the original scenes into the special edition release as an extra only: "After we screened the rough cut, we realized that the movie didn't really start until Snake got to New York. It wasn't necessary to show what sent him there." The film has been released on the UMD format for Sony's PlayStation Portable.
Novelization
In 1981, Bantam BooksBantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
published a movie tie-in novelization
Novelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
written by Mike McQuay
Mike McQuay
Michael Dennis McQuay was an American science fiction writer. His series include Mathew Swain, Ramon and Morgan, Executioner, and SuperBolan. The Book of Justice series he wrote as Jack Arnett. He also wrote the second of the Isaac Asimov's Robot City novels. His non-series novel Memories was...
that adopts a lean, humorous style reminiscent of the film. The novel is significant because it includes scenes that were cut out of the film, such as the Federal Reserve Depository robbery that results in Snake's incarceration. The novel provides motivation and backstory to Snake and Hauk — both disillusioned war veterans — deepening their relationship that was only hinted at it in the film. The novel explains how Snake lost his eye during the Battle for Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
in World War III, how Hauk became warden of New York, and Hauk's quest to find his crazy son who lives somewhere in the prison. The novel fleshes out the world that these characters exist in, at times presenting a future even bleaker than the one depicted in the film. The book explains that the west coast is a no-man's land, and the country's population is gradually being driven crazy by nerve gas as a result of World War III.
Remake
Scottish actor Gerard ButlerGerard Butler
Gerard James Butler is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies , which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in...
was close to signing a deal where he would play Snake Plissken in a remake of Carpenter's movie. Neal Moritz was to produce and Ken Nolan was to write the screenplay which would combine an original story for Plissken with the story from the 1981 movie, although Carpenter has hinted that the film might be a prequel.
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
(one-time video distributor of the original) acquired the rights to the film from co-rights holder StudioCanal
StudioCanal
StudioCanal is a French-based production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world...
, who will control the European rights, and Carpenter, who will serve as an executive producer and said, "Snake is one of my fondest creations. Kurt Russell did an incredible job, and it would be fun to see someone else try." Russell has commented on the remake and on the casting of Butler as Plissken, saying, "I will say that when I was told who was going to play Snake Plissken, my initial reaction was 'Oh, man!' [Russell winces]. I do think that character was quintessentially one thing. And that is, American." Len Wiseman
Len Wiseman
Len Ryan Wiseman is an American film director best known for his work on the Underworld series and Live Free or Die Hard. His latest project, Total Recall, is set for release in summer 2012...
was attached to direct but he dropped out of the project and rumors were that Brett Ratner
Brett Ratner
Brett Ratner is an American film director, film producer and music video director. He is best known for directing the Rush Hour film series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Tower Heist. He was also a producer on the Fox drama series, Prison Break.- Early life :Ratner was...
would helm the film. Since Ratner has not formally committed to the new project, the identity of the director is as yet unclear. The studio has brought Jonathan Mostow
Jonathan Mostow
Jonathan Mostow is an American film director, writer and producer.-Biography:A graduate of Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut and Harvard, Mostow also trained at the American Repertory Company and New York City's Lee Strasberg Institute...
in to rewrite, with an option to direct. In addition, Gerard Butler has bowed out of his role claiming "creative differences". Allan Loeb wrote currently the script for the New Line Cinema project. Breck Eisner has been announced as the director of the remake. The film will not feature a post apocalyptic New York like the original did, rather the New York in the new film will have been built after the bomb.In November of 2010, reports cited Jeremy Renner
Jeremy Renner
Jeremy Lee Renner is a two-time Academy-Award-nominated American actor and musician. Renner appeared in films throughout the 2000s, mostly in supporting roles. He came to prominence in films such as Dahmer , S.W.A.T. , Neo Ned , 28 Weeks Later and The Hurt Locker...
as being in talks to play Snake Plissken.