I’ve said it on here before… I don’t mind the idea of remakes. It’s an opportunity to take a good idea and put a fresh perspective or introduce it to a whole new audience that may have never seen it before, or may never see it since a lot of people don’t back date and watch older movies (which is a shame). Most of the time remakes don’t work… but sometimes they do (just like any movie really).
Having said that, I didn’t mind the idea of an Escape From New York remake. The majority of people out there haven’t seen the original (and probably never will sadly) and it’s a good enough story that I think deserves to be introduced to a new generation. But man a lot of people got up in arms about it.
The reaction has been as if the studio told all the original fans that they were taking the original and burning every copy of them so they can never see it again (followed by an evil laugh).
Anyway, this curious bit of news just came out where John Carpenter is suggesting the “remake” may actually be some sort of prequel. Our good friends over at Filmjunk give us this:
The first important detail is that the movie may not actually be a remake at all. Carpenter says that a big part of the movie is about Snake Plissken before he gets to New York. I guess that’s kind of open to interpretation, but it begs the question even more: why not bring back Kurt Russell?? The other thing mentioned in the interview is that John Carpenter will actually involved in the movie… sort of. As executive producer he will read over the script to make sure the character is consistent with his original vision.
I think my good friend Sean who wrote that article for FilmJunk is off his rocker when he suggests the question is “why not bring Russell back”. It’s a prequel dude… Snake is a character in his 30’s. As much as I love Kurt Russell… this role isn’t him anymore. That’s like saying if they make a Silver Spoons movie they should bring Ricky Schroder back to play the little kid again.
I think the REAL question is… if it’s a Prequel… why on earth call it “Escape from New York”??? Any thoughts?
