Wiseman, Butler Team Up to Remake Escape from New York

Posted by Mister Hand (misterhand@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 15, 2007

It’s remake season again, and if you keep yourself very quietly crouched in your geek blind, you can hear the fanboy squawks as they drift gently over the water.

Here’s what has the nattering nabobs of the intrawebs all a-twitter, from Variety:

“Len Wiseman (”Live Free or Die Hard”) has decided to “Escape From New York,” and is set to helm the New Line remake, which will star Gerard Butler and be produced by Neal Moritz.”

If you don’t know that the original Escape From New York starred Kurt Russell and was directed by John Carpenter, then you’re either not nearly as old as me (my young girlfriend had never heard of the movie when we met), or you need to turn in your internet movie geek credentials.

(Just as an aside, the annoyance of my girlfriend being clueless about Carpenter’s early 80’s action sci-fi classic is far outweighed by the fact that she is, as I mentioned, my young girlfriend. I mean, she’s not, like, illegal young or anything. She’s just young enough that we have some awkward moments–like when I expressed surprise that she didn’t see the original Star Wars at the movie theater and she had to remind me that she hadn’t been born yet when it was initially released. And then I really feel old. And for about ten seconds I feel this burning resentment that here I am with a patch of gray in my beard and I’m coming up on forty and she still has all this youth that she unknowingly flaunts at me–like the guy down the road who just bought a brand new Dodge Viper and here I am puttering around in my ten-year-old Tercel. I hate that guy.)

Forgive the ridiculously long parenthetical.

Anyway, the fanboy rants were already in full swing before Variety confirmed that the property was officially in the works. Peter Sciretta at /Film had this to say:

“I’m not sure what to think of this. When I re-watched the film a few months back, I thought to myself: “This could make a great big budget hollywood remake.” But who knows. However, I would rather see someone like The Rock or Vin Diesel play Plissken. I think it all depends on the director. This would be perfect for Michael Bay.”

Shudder.

Well, for now, Diesel and The Rock are out and Gerard Butler, someone who can actually… you know… act–is in. And while Len Wiseman is no Martin Scorcese, he’s also no Michael Bay. I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to figure out if that’s a good or bad thing.

SPOILER: It’s a good thing.

If you really want to strap your geek on for this thing, Merrick at Ain’t It Cool News has actually read and reviewed the initial Escape From New York remake script.

All I know is, it’s going to be hard to find someone to fill Adrienne Barbeau’s… er… shoes for this film. I’ll never forget the day my father bought a new VHS player that had frame-by-frame advance. By the time I returned Swamp Thing to the video rental store, I must have bored a hole in the tape at about 30 minutes in.

Man! Thinking about that takes me right down mammary lane.

Memory lane! I meant to say memory lane!

While Barbeau wasn’t naked in Escape From New York, I do remember thinking, “Boy, it must be cold in future dystopian Manhatten these days!”

(And just as an aside to an aside, I have absolutely nothing against older women–or women my age. That’s just what shook down for me from the girlfriend tree.)

Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) is handling the writing duties for the new Escape From New York, which I would presume could be said to be in early pre-production.

On the Side: Whether this one turn out to be a huge turd or not, Len Wiseman does go home to Kate Beckinsale every night. Guess the joke’s on us.

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