New Escape From New York Directors Say Film Won’t Be a Remake

There’s still some time until the next Escape From New York comes to fruition, but the directors say it won’t be a remake of the original classic. As reported last month, the trio known as Radio Silence (Scream, Ready or Not) are directing a film that will revive the franchise, which began in 1981 with the John Carpenter-helmed original. The three members of the collective — Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella — recently spoke with EW and confirmed they will not be remaking that original film.

Villella said that the reboot is still in the “very, very early stages” and added, “We’re very excited to be working with 20th Century on that. We’re developing our take, and hopefully, it will be going to script sometime in the New Year, and just really starting to lay the groundwork for that. But very early stages.”

Gillett added that the film is “Not a remake. That’s one of those properties that you can’t [remake], it’s sort of untouchable to us, and lives in its own stratosphere in terms of how important it is to us, and how much we love it. So it’ll be not unlike Scream, I think, a nod to, and a continuation of, what we love about those characters and that world.”

The original Escape From New York starred Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, a man brought out of prison to rescue the president from kidnahppers who are on the island prison colony of Manhattan. It was followed up with 1997’s Escape From LA.