The original starred Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, a tough convict dropped into a futuristic New York that has been turned into a post-apocalyptic maximum security prison. He’s charged with rescuing the president (Donald Pleasence), who is held hostage by the prison kingpin (Isaac Hayes) after his plane within the city walls. Snake’s offered a pardon if he’s successful, but fitted with a lethal device that will kill him if he tries to run or misses the deadline.
New Line and producer Neal H. Moritz have been working on the reboot, most recently with The Crazies helmer Breck Eisner attached to direct, and a script by writers that includeAllan Loeb and Jamie Moss. However it appears that’s now been dropped, despite advanced plans on how they would redo it, and many people having bigged up the ideas for the remake.