Back in April, Crazies director Breck Eisner signed on to helm the planned remake of Escape From New York, replacing both Len Wiseman and Brett Ratner, who’ve been attached at various points in the past. Now Eisner has been talking about the film to Movieweb, and while he stops short of saying who’s going to play Snake Plissken, it seems Timothy Olyphant, who he worked with on The Crazies, has a very good shot.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
I know you are remaking Escape From New York next, as well as Blood of the Innocent. So who is Timothy Olyphant going to play? Jack the Ripper? Dracula? Or Snake Plissken?
Breck Eisner: (Laughs) All three if you ask me. I love working with Timothy Olyphant, and I will be working with him again. He is an amazing actor. A talented guy. And he’s incredibly funny. He needs to do a great comedy, because he is a funny guy. But I will work with him again. I can promise you that.
Can you talk at all about this idea? That he might very well be our next Snake Plissken?
Breck Eisner: Creatively, he would be great for it. We have not yet discussed internally within the studio who will play Snake Plissken. There are many factors that go into those discussions. First and foremost, obviously, is the creative one. We can’t make the movie unless we get the perfect Snake Plissken, and that’s a tall order. There are very few guys that could do it. He would definitely be one of the guys who could. There is no question about that.
So it seems that while they’re not actively casting yet, Eisner may well call Olyphant when the time comes. As the director says, filling Kurt Russell’s shoes is a tall order, not least because when securing the remake rights, it was stipulated that while they could change aspects of the Escape From new York story, they couldn’t mess at all with the main character. It seems we won’t be hearing if Olyphant has got the role for a while yet, but it’s a definite possibility.