Rumor: Josh Brolin to Play Snake Plissken in Escape From New York Remake
The curse of One-Eyed Willie…
UPDATE: The reader consensus seems to be 1) no, it’s not cool, this remake is utterly pointless and a disgrace, 2) where the hell will Snake “land the glider,” 3) Brolin is too old (not really understanding this one), 4) FTW, John Carpenter and Kurt Russell should team up to make Escape From Boston or Escape From Earth (good to see our readers’ idealism staying strong!).
This rumor is a wild red hair that sprouted from the pale leg of Spielberg News, but we’ll entertain it for now because it’s late at night, this remake is happening, and the casting would be pritty, pritty good. In a role that would nicely connect the eye-patched dots to his salad days on The Goonies, actor Josh Brolin is rumored to be the top contender to play dystopian, one-eyed rogue, Snake Plissken, in the planned remake of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York. Throughout the end of last year, Gerard Butler (300, The Game) was attached to Plissken, as were directors Brett Ratner (we coined it Escape From Brett Ratner) and Len Wisemen (Live Free or Die Censored), both of whom are no longer in the equation (thanks). This is how the site’s scoop translates from French to English…
“It is our scoop of the week. A source close to the production (if so) has assured us that it is now Josh Brolin to be in the running to take over the role of Snake Plissken in the remake currently in draft New York 1997.”
There are a lot of top actors taking on genre fare these days, but we’ve always been keen on Brolin for hypothetical franchise roles like Metal Gear Solid’s Solid Snake. Whereas the success of Butler’s casting as Plissken would be fully realized only by a really cool director, Brolin’s involvement, if it pans out, would give the remake unforseen cache. Though New Line is dismantled, the remake is purportedly going ahead, so we’ll update accordingly. Brolin will next be seen on screen this Fall as Dubbya (he botched a lay-up) in Oliver Stone’s W.
John Carpenter Returning to Theaters with L.A. Gothic
Whenever I meet someone who will go to the mat for John Carpenter, that to me is a qualifier for friendship. In my mind, Carpenter is like Stanley Kubrick with holes in his jeans, or a joint to a $15 cigar, or Pabst Blue Ribbon to Heineken if I can be Frank. From 1976’s Assault on Precinct 13 to 1988’s They Live, he had a ferocious run, tearing up social norms with irreverent style and quasi-populist humor while constantly entertaining audiences with a mad swirl of genres.
It’s unfortunate that those audiences would show up later than sooner, and the critics? Well, I’m grateful the Internet arrived because most critics would rather praise a mediocre movie playing in five theaters than publish a retrospective praising Carpenter. His movies poked fun at the establishment and his modus operandi wore self-reliance on its sleeve. Those synthy scores drove his independence home like roman candles made with gun powder and other manly things. He made movies with giant balls for geeks before geeks were recognized. He used his youth and ideals about movie making to the fullest. But now that geeks are recognized, where are those ballsy movies from the new geek directors?
It’s been seven years since Carpenter had a movie, Ghosts of Mars, in theaters. I walked out of that one, and 1998’s Vampires was a disappointment sans a pretty cool start. His next film, L.A. Gothic, is scheduled to start shooting in March, with a script by Jim Agnew and Sean Keller, who scribed the new Dario Argento movie, Giallo, mentioned yesterday. Here’s the log line via STYD:
Five interwoven stories of high-octane horror centering on a vengeful ex-priest’s efforts to protect his teenage daughter from the supernatural evils of L.A.’s dark side.
So, it’s an anthology horror film to boot a la next October’s Trick ‘r Treat. Those are always difficult to pull off, and harder still to make work at the box office (why is that?), but it seems like perfect socio-skewer material for Carpenter’s return to feature filmmaking. Plus, anthology horror in the theater simply rocks. And, you know, for some reason critics just love movies about L.A., especially when the city’s in the title.
Guillermo del Toro’s Next: At the Mountains of Madness
The live action Tarzan film has put on hold so that Pan’s Labyrinth mastermind Guillermo del Toro can tackle one of his passion projects. LatinoReview has learned that Guillermo will be directing an adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness next after he finishes Hellboy 2 (due Summer 2008). Based on the 1931 H.P. Lovecraft novel, the film will follow explorers who journey to Antarctica where they uncover an ancient race of beasts in the ruins of a lost civilization.
Del Toro has previous said that “The studio [Warner Bros] is very nervous about the cost and it not having a love story or a happy ending, but it’s impossible to do either in the Lovecraft universe.”
HP Lovecraft is one of the seminal horror authors of the twentieth century. He wrote more than one hundred stories, and achieved popular acclaim in such publications as Astounding Stories and Weird Tales. Cliver Barker has said that “Lovecraft’s fiction is one of the cornerstones of modern horror.” Madness is considered by Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi to represent the decisive “demythology” of the Cthulhu Mythos. Director John Carpenter’s 1995 Lovecraftian tribute movie In the Mouth of Madness bases its title on this story, although the plot is unrelated.
Len Wiseman to direct Gears of War and Escape From New York Remake?
IESB is reporting that that Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman is currently in talks with New Line Cinema to develop and direct both a big screen adaptation of the popular X-Box 360 video game Gears of War and the announced Escape from New York remake.
On March 20th, it was announced that New Line Cinema had purchased the rights to make a Gears of War film, with Collateral and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl screenwriter Stuart Beattie writing the script along with Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, who will be producing it. CAA conducted the auction, which featured a 21 page treatment by Beattie. New Line also announced that the film would hit theaters in 2009.
Released in November, Gears has sold over three million units worldwide, becoming the fourth best selling game of last year (not too shabby for only a two month lead). The game has become a staple in the online gameplay world of Xbox Live. Gears of War follows the soldiers of Delta Squad as they fight to save the human inhabitants of the fictional planet Sera from a relentless subterranean enemy known as The Locust Horde.
A week earlier the studio also announced plans to remake John Carpenter’s 1981 action classic Escape From New York with 300 star Gerard Butler attached. Butler would play Snake Plissken, the one-eyed convict who must rescue the President of the United States from an inescapable maximum security prison formerly known as Manhattan. The film was set in a dystopian then-future 1997. Kurt Russell originated the role. The 1996 sequel Escape to L.A. was not as popular. Black Hawk Down scribe Ken Nolan is writing the screenplay.
Wiseman has certainly found a home in the geek action genre, after filming Underworld and it’s subsequent sequel. His latest, Live Free or Die Hard has made over $302.4 million worldwide, which is probably enough to give a big Hollywood studio confidence in two big upcoming franchises.