Director Breck Eisner is itching to work with his Crazies lead Timothy Olyphant again, but does this mean there's a spot for him in Eisner's upcoming Escape From New York remake? Sounds like there's a chance.
In an interview with MovieWeb, Eisner was asked about teaming up with Olyphant again. And as opposed to giving the usual non-answer Eisner sang the praises of Olyphant's Plissken potential:
Creatively, he would be great for it. We have not yet discussed internally within the studio who will play Snake Plissken. There are many factors that go into those discussions. First and foremost, obviously, is the creative one. We can't make the movie unless we get the perfect Snake Plissken, and that's a tall order. There are very few guys that could do it. He would definitely be one of the guys who could. There is no question about that.
We could see it, but we'd rather hear a few other options as well. The man does know how to pull off "crazy like a fox" attitudes to be sure. But more importantly what about the direction of this new reboot? Will the plot be the same? Will they update it, or change the tone to suit a modern day audience? Coming Soon has an exclusive interview with Eisner and he's it sounds like he's using the post 9/11 world to twist the story a bit:
Conceptually, it's an idea that's not true today because of the world we live in. So, how the prison is created is going to be different than in Carpenter's version. The anxiety of the world and anxiety of our existence post-9/11 is there, especially the anxiety in Manhattan post-9/11. Plot-wise, they're different, emotionally they're very similar. That's why it'll be interesting to tackle this movie, to have a slightly different take but with the same results which is Manhattan is turned into a walled prison.
A while back we heard there was a pretty decent script floating around that cleverly combined Plissken banter and modern concerns, but we're not sure if this is the draft Eisner is working with any more.
Until we know more, we're keeping our fingers crossed that Russell comes back, someway somehow.