Genre fans should be very familiar with filmmaker Leigh Whannell, who is behind the Insidious franchise, Saw and Upgrade. He continues to add to his long list of horror hits. Not only was it just announced that Whannell will be in the director’s chair for Universal’s reboot of The Invisible Man, we’ve just learned that he will also be directing the remake of John Carpenter’s classic Escape from New York.
THR is reporting that while no deal is in place at the moment their sources are saying he’s the one.
“Whannell is kickstarting Escape from New York with a new vision for the project that sources say will retain elements of the original but bring new ideas to the table. One of Whannell’s goals is to avoid the bloated tentpole remake path that afflicted the reboots of the other 1980s-era movies such as Robocop and Total Recall.”
Kurt Russell starred in the 1981 original as Snake Plissken, a convicted bank robber sent into Manhattan, which had been turned into a maximum security prison, to rescue the president.
Andrew Rona is producing along with Alex Heineman. John Carpenter is executive producing.
