Escape From New York: John Carpenter Says Snake Plissken Could Have Two More Stories

Filmmaker John Carpenter collaborated with actor Kurt Russell on multiple occasions, which included reviving Escape from New York‘s Snake Plissken for the 1996 sequel Escape from L.A., with Carpenter recently confirming that he could see Plissken getting as many as two more stories. We shouldn’t expect Carpenter himself to develop those stories, as he’s been vocal about losing interest in directing due to how time-consuming the process is, but with Russell’s Big Trouble in Little China character Jack Burton continuing his adventures in comic books, we couldn’t rule out seeing Plissken get all-new adventures in a different medium, with Carpenter potentially serving as a collaborator.

“He’s a character that Kurt is passionately fond of. He convinced me to do the sequel,” Carpenter shared with Total Film, per GamesRadar. “There’s probably a third or maybe even fourth story about Snake. I don’t know if we’ll ever make it, but I think that he deserves it.”

Carpenter last directed a film in 2010 with The Ward, with the past decade seeing him focus more on crafting music. Throughout his career, Carpenter has often written, directed, and scored his own features, which is an understandably time-consuming endeavor. When previously asked if he would consider focusing solely on directing, the filmmaker shot down the notion.

“No. That’s hard work also. See, you’re talking about hard work,” Carpenter shared with ComicBook.com when asked about directing from a script he didn’t write. “Come on, man, you’re talking about a lot of work.”

He added, “You never say never in this business. But a script will come along, and I read it and say, ‘Wow, I got to do that.’ I just don’t know. We’ll see. I’m open to it.”

Despite his apprehension about filmmaking, Carpenter did serve as a producer on 2018’s Halloween and the upcoming Halloween Kills.

As far as Plissken’s future is concerned, The Invisible Man writer/director Leigh Whannell has been attached to a reboot of Escape from New York.

“I feel like a property like that doesn’t have the same freedom as maybe something like The Invisible Man does,” Whannell shared with ComicBook.com about Snake Plissken back in 2020. “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.”

Stay tuned for details on Snake Plissken’s possible future.

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