Zack Snyder Officially Rebooting John Carpenter's 45-Year-Old Sci-Fi Classic

Zack Snyder's next movie is officially set. The Justice League director is poised to reimagine John Carpenter's 1981 independent sci-fi classic Escape from New York for a new generation. Snyder is signed on to both write and direct the remake of the movie that helped make Kurt Russell a star with his performance as the antihero Snake Plisskin.

Zack Snyder's next movie is officially set. The Justice League director is poised to reimagine John Carpenter's 1981 independent sci-fi classic Escape from New York for a new generation. Snyder is signed on to both write and direct the remake of the movie that helped make Kurt Russell a star with his performance as the antihero Snake Plisskin.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the package is still being finalized, but is expected to be shopped around to studios within weeks. Sources also say the Escape from New York reboot is intended for theatrical release, not a straight-to-streaming debut.

Zack Snyder Could Breathe New Life Into the Escape From New York Series

Snyder's Escape from New York reboot is being produced by Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman of The Picture Company. They're going through StudioCanal, which jointly owns the rights to Escape to New York with Carpenter, who is an executive producer on the reboot. The company has not officially commented on the news. Snyder is also producing via Stone Quarry, his production company, with partners Deborah Snyder and Wesley Coller.

An Escape from New York reboot has been floating around Hollywood since at least 2007, when New Line Cinema won the rights to the remake after a lengthy bidding war. Gerard Butler had been chosen to step into the role of Snake, but the project couldn't seem to hold a director for long, with Len Wiseman and Brett Ratner both attached at different points.

More recently, Robert Rodriguez, Leigh Whannell, and lastly the Radio Silence duo were attached to direct, but there have been no concrete updates since about 2022, until now. It seems that the Radio Silence team chose to move on to The Mummy 4 and leave Snyder to crack the code on remaking Escape from New York.

Escape from New York Is Being Remade at the Right Time

The original Escape from New York is set in the then-future of 1997. The United States is fully dystopian and, to segregate its rapidly growing criminal element, has turned Manhattan into a maximum-security prison. When anti-government insurgents crash Air Force One into the island, trapping the president there, the government calls in the prisoner and former Special Forces agent Snake Plisskin, giving him 24 hours to save POTUS.

Carpenter's gritty, post-apocalyptic vision proved a success, earning $50 million on a $6 million budget and receiving critical praise. Escape from New York became a cult classic among fans of 1980s sci-fi cinema and earned several Saturn Award nominations. A sequel eventually followed, 1996's Escape from L.A., but it saw a much less enthusiastic reception.

But that may actually be why this is the right time for a reboot. Escape from New York is one of the few classic sci-fi movies that hasn't already been rebooted, remade, or turned into a franchise with spinoff prequel television shows. Given how much superheroes have dominated the box office in the 21st century, and the fact that such heroes are seeing diminished financial returns as of late, it could be that a dose of 1980s-style gritty sci-fi action with an anti-hero lead is exactly what audiences are missing.

Of course, when dealing with a cult classic as revered as Escape from New York, there will always be fans who feel it shouldn't be remade under any circumstances. However, if a remake is inevitable, then Snyder's divisive reputation for handling superheroes may be evidence that he's the right director for the job.