From Collider, 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.
Wiseman's in final negotiations with the minimajor, which won bidding in March for a package that included Butler following the boffo launch of "300."
"Black Hawk Down" scribe Ken Nolan is penning the script. Exec producers include Original's Ori Marmur; Ron Halpern and Frederic Sichler of Canal Plus, which held the remake rights; and John Carpenter, who directed the original 1981 pic.
Butler's portraying Snake Plissken, the convict and war hero who's sent into a futuristic Manhattan -- which has been turned into a giant maximum security prison -- to rescue the president of the U.S. after his plane is knocked down by terrorists. The original starred Kurt Russell and was set in 1998.
"Live Free or Die Hard" has grossed more than $335 million worldwide. Wiseman, who broke into the business in production design, directed "Underworld" and "Underworld: Evolution."
2 comments:
My opinion of this guy totally shifted after Live Free or Die Hard. Maybe he deserved to marry Kate Beckinsale after all.
I love that the original takes place in 1998.
NYC's rep in the 70's certainly lent itself to the extrapolation into a walled-off prison city, but real estate there is worth so much now it's hard to imagine. I'm sure there are plenty of US urban neighborhoods that actually would serve as great candidates for this today. But admittedly, none as glamorous, and what's more important than glamor when you're making a prison?
Wait, did you see Die Hard 4? What's the good word? Hopefully I'm going to catch this with Johnny at the Cinema Pub next week.
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