Back in November 2022, the film collective Radio Silence was confirmed to be tackling an Escape from New York remake.
While helming one of John Carpenter’s most iconic films is any filmmaker’s dream, it seems that Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella will no longer be working on the project.
When asked by ComicBook if the duo were still developing the project, Gillett breaks the bad news about Escape from New York.
Gillett notes, “We are not, unfortunately. I think titles like that bounce around for a while, and I think they’ve tried to get that out of the blocks a few times. I think it’s just ultimately a tricky rights issue thing. There’s a clock on it and we just weren’t in a position to make the clock, ultimately. But who knows?”
“I think, in hindsight, it feels crazy that we would think we would, post-Scream, step into a John Carpenter franchise,” he adds. “You never know. There’s still interest in it, and we’ve had a few conversations about it, but we’re not attached in any official capacity.”
Released in 1981, Escape from New York starred Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, a prisoner and ex-soldier who is enlisted by the U.S. government to infiltrate the maximum security prison island of Manhattan to rescue the President’s kidnapped daughter. A box office success, the film became a firm cult classic, with Carpenter and Russell reuniting in 1996 for the sequel Escape from L.A.
Radio Silence’s latest horror film, Abigail, is now available digitally. Read our review here.
