John Carpenter is no stranger to seeing his back catalogue of classics being remade, with new versions of Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog and The Thing all having been mounted in the last fifteen years alone. However, the planned update of Escape from New York has struggled to make it out of development hell, with a number of actors and directors having been linked with the project in the meantime.
Gerard Butler was first named as a potential candidate to don the iconic eye patch of Snake Plissken back in 2007, and the following year Josh Brolin found himself rumored for the role before things went quiet. In 2015, Luther creator Neil Cross was tasked to write the script, and two years later Robert Rodriguez was announced to be directing. That didn’t come to fruition, though, with Saw co-creator and The Invisible Man writer/director Leigh Whannell boarding the project in early 2019, but we haven’t heard any updates on Escape from New York for over a year now.
Of course, stepping into Kurt Russell’s iconic shoes as Snake is a tough task for any actor given the innate charisma and sheer level of badassery he brought to the role. Though with the rights to the property falling into the lap of Disney following the Fox takeover, and having boarded the Marvel Cinematic Universe as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s John Walker, Kurt’s son Wyatt is already more than familiar with the Mouse House.
Indeed, there’s been some support online behind the idea of seeing Russell Jr. step into his father’s shoes as Snake Plissken, but in a new interview, the 34 year-old admitted that he’s got absolutely no interest in committing career suicide.
“Although that’s very kind, that will not be happening. There will be no Snake reboot from me, that’s like career suicide 101. That’s like what not to do. I don’t know if anybody else could be Snake Plissken. Good luck, go get ‘em, I sincerely wish you the best of luck. I just don’t know how it’s possible. And 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.”
That’s a completely understandable thought process, because replacing Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken in an Escape from New York remake would be a difficult enough proposition as it is, never mind for his own son.