Zack Snyder is set to write and direct a reimagining of ‘Escape From New York,’ the dystopian cult classic from John Carpenter, Deadline can confirm.
The project is intended for release in theaters. More details ⬇️ https://t.co/BGNMIlDFBA
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) June 1, 2026
Snyder is attached to write and direct a reimagining of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York, the 1981 action movie that introduced the world to Snake Plissken.
In the movie, antihero S.D. “Snake” Plissken (Kurt Russell), a decorated Special Forces veteran turned federal convict, is coerced into rescuing the U.S. President from Manhattan, in a world where the entire island has been turned into a maximum security prison.
According to Carpenter, he wrote the screenplay for Escape from New York in the mid-’70s, following the Watergate scandal that sank U.S. President Richard Nixon. “The whole feeling in the nation was one of real cynicism about the president,” Carpenter said in 1994. “I wrote the screenplay and no studio wanted to make it. They all said, ‘We’ve been up on the president enough. We can’t have this kind of dark view.'”
I wouldn’t know anything about having a dark view of the president, would you?
