Joel Silver Plans to Reboot 'Escape From New York' as Trilogy
Movie

The John Carpenter-directed movie which originally starred Kurt Russell will be brought back to the big screen as an entirely new franchise.

AceShowbiz - A new take on 1981's science-fiction action movie "Escape From New York" is being planned. Deadline reports Joel Silver of Silver Pictures has teamed up with Studio Canal, which has acquired the rights to the film from New Line Cinema, to create a new franchise based on the classic story.

Instead of simply remaking the John Carpenter-directed cult movie, the "Sherlock Holmes" producer reportedly plans to turn the material into a trilogy. He is expected to make the first film as an origin story with additional adventures to follow in the next installment.

Starring Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, the original film is set in a futuristic New York that has been turned into a post-apocalyptic maximum security prison. Plissken is tasked to free the president (Donald Pleasence) from the clutches of the prison kingpin (Isaac Hayes).

The tough soldier-turned convict is given 24 hours to find the president. He will receive a pardon if he succeeds in his mission but will likely end up dead if he fails as he's fitted with a lethal device that will kill him if he tries to run or misses the deadline.

A sequel, "Escape From L.A.", was made in 1996 with Carpenter and Russell returning. A few years ago, New Line attempted to do a remake with producer Neil Moritz and "The Crazies" helmer Breck Eisner. Gerard Butler, Jeremy Renner and Tom Hardy were linked to play the male lead, but the project never came to fruition.

Silver previously joined forces with Studio Canal in the making of Liam Neeson-starring action films "Unknown (2011)" and "Non-Stop". They also have another movie coming out, a Sean Penn-starrer "Prone Gunman".

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