It turns out that the remake of Escape From New York couldn’t ecsape from Development Hell. After years of trying, New Line Cinema has finally decided that they don’t want to move ahead on remaking the John Carpenter classic with Deadline reporting that the studio is passing on renewing their option for the film.
Talk about remaking the film goes back as far as 2007 when Gerard Butler was first attached to star as Snake Plissken, the criminal who is offered a pardon if he rescues the President of the United States from New York City which, in the film’s future setting, has been turned into an island-sized maximum security prison and into which the President’s plane has crashed. The project’s long development saw three different directors – Len Wiseman, Brett Ratner and Breck Eisner – come and go as well as screenwriters Ken Nolan, Jonathan Mostow and Allan Loeb take a stab at the script. Along the way Butler dropped out and Jeremy Renner and Josh Brolin were both rumored as possible replacements.
