Leigh Whannell Offers Update on Escape From New York Reboot

Landing in theaters later this month is a new take on The Invisible Man from writer/director Leigh Whannell, which takes a familiar genre concept and reimagines it for a new generation. Last year, reports emerged that Whannell was attached to write a reboot of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York, leading fans to wonder if his take would be another reimagination of the concept or a more literal recreation, but with the filmmaker having spent so much of the past year focusing on his latest film, he recently admitted that he’s not sure what his approach will be on the reboot.

“It’s funny, I’ve been so busy working on this film where I haven’t had time to circle back around on that project,” Whannell shared with ComicBook.com. “Sometimes these press releases go out before you’re ready, you’re like, ‘Don’t tell the world!’ I don’t actually know, I really don’t. That is an iconic character and I think that Snake Plissken is a part of people’s childhood and their adolescence. It’s near and dear to them. So I would tread very carefully with that.”

Whannell pointed out that, while there have been a number of different incarnations of stories featuring invisible men, there have only been two films featuring Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, noting that reinventing The Invisible Man comes with much more freedom.

“I feel like a property like that doesn’t have the same freedom as maybe something like The Invisible Man does,” the filmmaker admitted. “He has more elasticity as a character because so many people have had their fingerprints on that. There’s been TV shows and comic books, whereas with Escape from New York, we’re talking about one definitive movie here and you don’t want to mess with it. We’ll see what happens.”

While Russell is intrinsically linked with the character, some fans are hoping to see his son Wyatt follow in his footsteps, with Whannell responding to that notion, “That seems like the obvious thing to win the fans over.”

The original film was written by Carpenter and Nick Castle, with the former admitting that he hopes Carpenter would be involved in any potential reboot.

“You know, I keep hearing this and that actor is gonna get involved and this production company,” Castle shared with ComicBook.com. “I just sit back and hopefully the checks will come in. We’ll see. Of course, I would hope that John is involved somehow so that it has his signature, ’cause I like it when companies and filmmakers that are using the material have a certain respect for where it came from.”

The Invisible Man lands in theaters on February 28th. Stay tuned for details on the Escape from New York reboot.

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