Escape From New York (Radio Silence To Direct New ‘Escape’ Movie For 20th Century Studios)

EXCLUSIVE: Hot directing team Radio Silence will next helm the reboot of Escape From New York for 20th Century Studios.

The Picture Company partners Andrew Rona & Alex Heineman will produce the film along with Radio Silence.

Original filmmaker John Carpenter will serve as executive producer of the film, which is a Studiocanal library title; the French company will hold distribution rights in several territories. The Picture Company has an overall deal with Studiocanal.

Word is quiet on the approach for the film, but sources say a writer search is underway.

Radio Silence is made up of filmmaking team Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett and Chad Villella. Its last film, a relaunch of the the Scream franchise, was a hit for Paramount which went on to gross $140 million at the worldwide box office and was also critically acclaimed. The team just wrapped the next chapter in the Scream series which will hit theaters next year. They also made the critical hit Ready or Not for Searchlight Pictures.

Steve Asbell and J.R. Young are overseeing Escape From New York for the studio. Radio Silence is represented by UTA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.

Under Asbell’s direction, 20th is focused on high-level IP and recently had success with the relaunch of the Predator franchise with Prey and has another chapter in the Alien franchise upcoming.

Source: Deadline

Rusty wrote:Bring in Wyatt Russell and I might just watch it.

That will not be happening. There will be no Snake reboot from me. I don't know if anybody else could be Snake Plissken. I just don't know how its possible. For me, if I really wanted to get people sending me hate mail I think that's what I should do. I will not be ever doing anything like that.

Tyger wrote:To be honest though, I think EFNY is overrated. Not bad at all, but overrated.

WyldeMan wrote:
I long wanted that too but Wyatt has been adamant that he'd never do it. Last year, when asked by Esquire if he'd ever take on the Plissken role:

That will not be happening. There will be no Snake reboot from me. I don't know if anybody else could be Snake Plissken. I just don't know how its possible. For me, if I really wanted to get people sending me hate mail I think that's what I should do. I will not be ever doing anything like that.

Rusty wrote:To be fair, he's probably not wrong. Being forever compared to your famous parent is one thing, but then jumping into the rebooted shoes of one of his most iconic roles ?!?!?!  that's a shit-storm waiting to happen.

It would be an easy trap for most Hollywood kids to fall into. It just made me think of Scott Eastwood. He's constantly compared to his old man. For his looks more than anything. Whilst his Dad looks taller/leaner, the face is easily recognisable.

Anyhoo, he did a movie not so long ago called The Outpost. It's a modern war movie based on real events. It's a good watch, but I kid you not, in one particular scene, not only does he change his voice and delivery to try and sound like his Dad, he also does the squinty-eye thing. LOL. It was fucking hilarious. Poor dude just fell into it.

At least they were saved the humility of being a celebrities Jr namesake. How George Foreman's sons haven't all killed themselves is beyond me.

When EW recently spoke to the Radio Silence filmmaking collective of Tyler Gillett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, and Chad Villella about their upcoming Scream VI, the latest entry in the Scream horror franchise, we couldn't resist asking the trio about their involvement in another famous genre property: Escape From New York.

In November, Deadline reported that the trio would helm a reboot of John Carpenter's 1981 science fiction thriller for 20th Century Studios, with Carpenter acting as executive producer on the project. The original film is set in a near future when Manhattan has been turned into a maximum security prison. Escape From New York starred Kurt Russell as soldier-turned-criminal Snake Plissken, who is tasked with rescuing Donald Pleasence's U.S. President after Air Force One is hijacked and the commander-in-chief's escape pod crashes inside the penitentiary. The film's stacked cast also included Lee Van Cleef, Adrienne Barbeau, Harry Dean Stanton, Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, Tom Atkins, and Frank Doubleday. A hit upon its release, Escape From New York has, over time, achieved the status of a bona fide classic thanks in large part to Russell's iconic portrayal of his taciturn, tattooed anti-hero.

Carpenter subsequently directed a Russell-starring sequel, 1996's less-loved, if still fun, Escape From L.A. Following the box office failure of that movie, a planned third film, titled Escape From Earth, was never produced. "Escape from Earth was kind of Snake Plissken in a space capsule, flying interstellar," Carpenter told Fandom earlier this year. "So there'd be a lot of special effects in it. Which I never care about too much. But that's what it would look like."

There have been several previous attempts to reboot the franchise. In 2015, EW confirmed that Luther creator Neil Cross had been hired to write a new series entry. Two years later, Desperado director Robert Rodriguez was in negotiations to work on a reboot. By 2020, it looked like The Invisible Man writer-director Leigh Whannell was prepping to take over the franchise.

Asked about the status of Radio Silence's reboot, Villella described the project as still being in the "very, very early stages."

"We're very excited to be working with 20th Century on that," he continued. "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."

So is the plan for the new movie to be a sequel or a remake?

"Not a remake," said Gillett. "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."