10 Terrible Remakes Of Awesome Movies That Almost Happened
2. Escape From New York
John Carpenter is no stranger to having his films be remade. Assault On Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog and The Thing (itself a remake) have all received makeovers in recent years. Carpenter has a pragmatic approach to this, as he explained to Collider.com in a 2011 interview:
'Well, they are paying me. There are two kinds of remakes of my films - the good kind, and the bad kind. They just did a prequel to The Thing. Thats the bad kind because I dont have any rights in it, so they dont pay me. If they do Escape From New York or They Live, or any of the other movies that I wrote and have a more primal position in, I get a cheque. Something that Ive wanted to do all my life is to make money doing nothing'
He was probably disappointed with the continued cancellation of the Escape From New York remake then. Many directors were attached to the direct and Gerard Butler was to stay as the legendary Snake Plissken. British actors Jason Statham and Tom Hardy have been rumoured to play the role since Butler left the project in 2010. Having a British actor play what is a quintessentially American character is just one of many things wrong with this remake (no offence to either actor, both of whom are positively badass in just about everything they do). As of September 2014 they are still trying to cast the film and there is nothing new to report on.
