Ever since the 1981 picture Escape from New York won widespread acclaim, Kurt Russell has been synonymous with the character Snake Plissken. The 1996 sequel Escape from L.A. fared much worse, of course. But that didn't prevent 20th Century Fox winning a hotly contested bidding war back in 2015 and now they are moving forward with Robert Rodriguez.
The 48-year old Texas native is known for his unique action stylings after success with titles like Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, Planet Terror and the spinoff Machete. A movie that was spawn out of a fake trailer in the Grindhouse series alongside Quentin Tarantino. While the project has been decades in the making with a host of stars and filmmakers linked to a reboot, this concrete news is exciting for those that want to see more Escape adventures.
Who Will Be Snake 2.0?
Any action star with credit in the industry right now has been linked with the role as negotiations lingered. Rodriguez will have his own man in mind as the likes of Jeremy Renner, Gerard Butler, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hardy, Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba and Jon Bernthal have been mooted.
The good news for Rodriguez is that his backroom team is well connected enough to source the right individual as a list of heavy hitters have jumped onboard the production. Luther creator Neil Cross has been crafting the script since October 2015. And he will be assisted by producers Andrew Rona, Alex Heineman and the legend himself John Carpenter as an executive producer.
Carpenter was the creator of the original, developing a dystopian Gotham in 1997 following the events of Nixon's Watergate scandal. That $6m sleeper would be onto make $25.2m at the box office.
Russell: Chris Pratt Is My Kinda Guy
Talking with Gizmodo ahead of the blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Kurt Russell admitted that he had no idea about the hype of the franchise that he was getting into.
“I was doing publicity for Hateful Eight and, suddenly, people started saying, ‘Is it true? Are you going to play Peter Quill’s father?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I just wasn’t aware of it.”
Sitting down in 2014 to see how incredible the original was, he felt an immediate connection with Star-Lord's own Chris Pratt.
“Within about three minutes of watching Chris, as soon as he kicked one of those lemmings, I went, ‘Okay. That’s cool.’” Russell remarked. “That’s my kinda guy. I know where that kind of goof comes from.”
Having been something of a pioneer playing rogue characters in a futuristic world, Russell believed that few understood what he was trying to achieve in the early 80s. And only now does the current generation appreciates his efforts.
“It’s fun to be living now in a time when a younger generation understands what I was doing,” he said. “The older guys, my age, they didn’t know what the f*** I was doing. They really didn’t. You can go back and read about it. It was like, ‘What is that?’ I think it’s funny.”
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