Zack Snyder has figured out one of the biggest questions surrounding his remake of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York: How do you remake a futuristic movie when its future is already nearly 30 years in the past?
You don’t modernize it. You go back to 1981 and imagine 1997 all over again. Snyder has shared some new details about his upcoming Escape From New York remake for Warner Bros., and instead of dragging Snake Plissken and Carpenter’s dystopian Manhattan into the modern world, he plans to preserve the retro-futuristic perspective that helped make the original so damn cool.
The new movie will still be set in 1997, but it’ll be a version of 1997 imagined through the eyes of 1981, the year Carpenter’s original film hit theaters.
Snyder explained his approach during a conversation with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, saying: “The approach is for me — the movie is going to be set in 97. It’s from the perspective of 1981.
“I set the movie — the war between the United States police force and the criminal elements takes place on July 9, 1981 which is the release date of the original movie. The rest is pretty much Escape From New York.”
That’s an interesting way to tackle a remake like this. Rather than asking what Escape From New York would look like if it were made today, Snyder is asking what another version of the movie might have looked like if it had grown out of the same era and cultural fears as Carpenter’s film.
Snyder also wants to retain the strange personality of the original, which mixed dystopian action with satire, social commentary, and plenty of camp. He described Carpenter’s film as a combination of “kitsch and camp” pointed out how it used its genre premise to comment on government power and overreach.
Carpenter’s 1981 classic takes place in a dystopian 1997 where Manhattan has been converted into one massive maximum-security prison. The island is sealed behind walls and guarded from the outside, while the criminals trapped within are essentially left to govern themselves.
Things get ugly when terrorists hijack Air Force One and crash it into Manhattan. The President survives, only to be captured by the Duke of New York, who controls the island’s criminal population.
With the clock ticking, the government sends in Snake Plissken, the legendary former war hero turned convicted criminal played by Kurt Russell.
His mission is to rescue the President and retrieve a crucial government tape. To make sure Snake doesn’t wander off and forget about the assignment, authorities implant explosives in his body that will kill him if he doesn’t finish the job before the deadline.
It’s a beautifully nasty premise, and Snake remains one of Russell’s best and coolest characters. Warner Bros. is developing Snyder’s Escape From New York and his decision to keep the 1997 setting makes this project more interesting than a standard modern remake.
There are still plenty of questions, especially the biggest one of who is going to play Snake Plissken? Any suggestions!?
