Zack Snyder Reveals His Approach to Escape from New York Remake
Zack Snyder has revealed the first significant details about how he intends to approach his new version of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York, and one of the biggest questions has now been answered. Rather than dragging Carpenter’s dystopian future into the present day, Snyder plans to keep the story in 1997, preserving the future as it was imagined from the perspective of the early 1980s.
Snyder became attached earlier this year to write and direct a new version of Carpenter’s 1981 science-fiction action film for Studiocanal and The Picture Company. Studiocanal had initially announced at CinemaCon in April that a new Escape from New York was in development, before Snyder’s involvement was reported in June. Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman of The Picture Company are producing.
Speaking to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Snyder has now explained that he isn’t planning to treat 2026 as the starting point from which to imagine another future. Instead, his film will effectively return to the period when Carpenter made the original and build its world from there.
“The movie is going to be set in ’97. It’s from the perspective of 1981,” Snyder explained.
That is a potentially important distinction. Carpenter’s original Escape from New York was released in 1981 but took place in the then-distant year of 1997, presenting a grim future in which Manhattan had been transformed into a gigantic maximum-security prison. Snyder’s version will retain that 1997 setting rather than moving the story forward several decades. In other words, this isn’t intended to show what New York might become in our future. It will once again explore an imagined 1997 conceived through an early-1980s lens.
Snyder has also devised a specific piece of backstory for his version. He said the conflict between the United States Police Force and criminal elements will begin on July 9, 1981, before adding that the remainder of the story will be “pretty much Escape from New York.” Snyder identified July 9 as the original film’s release date during the interview, although Carpenter’s official website actually lists its US release as July 10, 1981.
Back to 1997
Carpenter’s original remains one of the defining dystopian action films of its era. Written by John Carpenter and Nick Castle, it imagines a United States where crime has increased so dramatically that Manhattan Island has been converted into the country’s maximum-security prison. A huge containment wall surrounds the island, bridges and waterways are mined and prisoners are simply deposited inside, leaving them to create their own society.
At the centre of the film is Snake Plissken, played by Kurt Russell, a former Special Forces soldier turned criminal who is brought to New York after the President of the United States becomes trapped inside the prison. Donald Pleasence plays the President, whose aircraft is hijacked before he ends up in Manhattan, leaving the authorities with the problem of extracting him from a place deliberately designed to prevent anyone from getting out.
Snake is offered a deal, but naturally there is some additional encouragement. He is sent into Manhattan with a limited amount of time to locate the President and bring him back alive. Inside, he encounters the society that has developed beyond the control of the authorities, including The Duke of New York, played by Isaac Hayes. The supporting cast also includes Lee Van Cleef as Bob Hauk, Ernest Borgnine as Cabbie, Harry Dean Stanton as Brain and Adrienne Barbeau as Maggie.
Carpenter directed the film and composed its electronic score with Alan Howarth, while Dean Cundey served as cinematographer. The combination of dystopian science fiction, western influences, action and Carpenter’s stripped-down filmmaking helped turn Snake Plissken into one of Russell’s most recognisable characters. Carpenter and Russell would subsequently work together again on The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China and the eventual Escape from New York sequel.
That sequel, Escape from L.A., finally arrived in 1996, with Carpenter directing and Russell returning as Snake. The new Snyder project, however, is returning to the premise of the original rather than functioning as another adventure for the existing version of the character.
Who Will Be the New Snake Plissken?
That leaves the largest unanswered question hanging over the remake: who plays Snake?
Snyder isn’t telling us yet, but he has indicated that the conversation has progressed beyond simply wondering what kind of actor might work. When Horowitz asked whether he already had somebody in mind for the role, Snyder replied, “I may.” Asked whether it was somebody he had previously worked with, the director refused to give anything further away.
He did, however, make one element of his intentions very clear. Discussing the appearance of the new Snake, Snyder said: “He better look like Snake, or I’ll walk out.”
Snyder also spoke about the qualities of Carpenter’s film that he intends to retain, describing the original as a combination of “kitsch and camp” while acknowledging its satirical elements and themes surrounding government power and overreach. His comments suggest that preserving the peculiar retro-futuristic identity of Carpenter’s world is central to his current approach rather than merely recreating the basic rescue mission with modern technology.
Another Attempt to Escape
This is far from the first attempt to bring Escape from New York back to the screen. Various incarnations of a new film have circulated for years, with filmmakers including Robert Rodriguez, Leigh Whannell and Radio Silence associated with different versions at different stages. None of those projects ultimately resulted in a finished movie, and Snyder is now the latest filmmaker attempting to get Snake back into Manhattan.
It also isn’t Snyder’s first encounter with remaking a major genre film. His feature directing career began with Dawn of the Dead in 2004, a new version of George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie film. His subsequent credits have included 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Army of the Dead and the Rebel Moon films.
For now, Snyder’s comments give us a clearer picture of the direction without answering some of the biggest practical questions. No actor has been announced as Snake Plissken, and a release date has not been confirmed. What is now clear is that Snyder doesn’t intend to solve the problem of remaking a film set in a future that has already passed by simply choosing another future.
His Escape from New York is heading back to 1997, as imagined from 1981. Now we just need to find out who’s wearing the eyepatch.
