• "The Crazies" director Breck Eisner is moving from one horror icon (George Romero) to another (John Carpenter).
Eisner, the son of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, is in negotiations to direct New Line's remake of Carpenter's "Escape From New York," according to the Hollywood Reporter. He's just the latest in a long line of filmmakers who were previously attached to the Neal Moritz-produced project, including Len Wiseman and Brett Ratner.
Walter Hamada and Sam Brown will oversee for New Line, which picked up the remake rights in March 2007 when Gerard Butler was attached to star based on the strength of Ken Nolan's script. Since then, Jonathan Mostow ("U-571") and Allan Loeb ("Wall Street 2") have taken stabs at the script, and a draft from the latter seems to have done the trick.
The film aims to create an origin story for one-eyed anti-hero Snake Plissken and merge it with the story of original 1981 cult classic. That film envisioned Manhattan in 1997 as a giant maximum-security prison on which the U.S. president's place crashes, prompting convicted felon Plissken to attempt a rescue mission in order to secure his own freedom.
THR points out that while Eisner's remake of Romero's "The Crazies" took in a mediocre $38.5 million domestically, it was well received by horror fans and critics, earning a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes. As one of the genre buffs who paid to see "The Crazies" and came away relatively impressed with Eisner's sense of foreboding, I suppose I'll forget about "Sahara" and endorse New Line's choice of director.
That said, I'm not sure why New Line is remaking "Escape From New York" to begin with. I mean, haven't post-apocalyptic movies fallen out of fashion, especially after the box office failures of both "Doomsday" and "The Road?" Did anyone else see Carpenter's "Escape From L.A." or did they just enjoy the metal-heavy soundtrack, the only compilation to feature both White Zombie and Tori Amos. Has Hollywood learned nothing from other Carpenter remakes such as "Halloween," "The Fog" and "Assault on Precinct 13?"
And who could possibly fill Kurt Russell's shoes as Snake Plissken? Australian actor Joel Edgerton ("The Square") is playing the lead in Universal's upcoming prequel to "The Thing" but I'm not sure he's such a great fit for the eyepatch. If you have any suggestions, sound off in the comments section below!
• Speaking of "The Thing" prequel, screenwriter Eric Heisserer has been hired to write "Final Destination 5" for ... you guessed it ... New Line, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Warner Bros. honcho Alan Horn announced the development of a fifth film in the franchise -- despite the last one being titled "The Final Destination" -- at ShoWest in March. Like that film, "Final Destination 5" will be filmed in 3D. The studio is currently compiling a list of directors, with an eye toward a late 2011 release.
Series producer Craig Perry will return for "Final Destination 5," which will reportedly feature a scene in which a character undergoes LASIK eye surgery, with predictably fatal results.
