…and one is pissed while the other one is just happy to be getting some money…
from darkhorizons.com:
Kurt & Carpenter On New “Escape”
By Garth FranklinThursday March 22nd 2007 1:45am
imageVarious people have been vocal about the casting of Gerard Butler as Snake Plissken in the upcominig “Escape from New York” remake, and now the original star has weighed in.Talking with Entertainment Weekly, actor Kurt Russell had some less than flattering things to say about Butler’s casting – and the remake in general.
“When I was told who was going to play Snake Plissken, my initial reaction was ”Oh, man!” [Russell winces]. I do think that character was quintessentially one thing. And that is, American…He’s a fascinating character. In fact, he’s the most complex character I’ve ever played” says Russell.
So no chance of a cameo by Russell? “F— that! I am Snake Plissken! It’s like Sean Connery always watching someone else do their version of Bond.”
Meanwhile the original’s writer/director John Carpenter tells Suicide Girls that the film looks to be more of a prequel than the original – “I don’t know that it’s a remake. I think it’s a lot about Snake before he gets to New York” says Carpenter.
The director is also perfectly candid about his involvement – “My main involvement is I read the scripts and make sure the character is the same character that we wrote originally. I think that would be cool. My other main involvement in this project is to extend my hand and have a check placed in it…After 30 odd years of being in the fucking business, it’s nice to not have to do anything and get paid.”
I guess Carpenter is finally taking the Wes Craven approach. If you can’t beat them, join them. Wes Craven is actually helping to remake all of his movies, so much so that he and his son actually wrote the script for The Hills Have Eyes 2 that came out today.
I may or may not go see the remake to Escape. I love the first one (though I don’t own it) along with its sequel, Escape from LA and I was hoping to see Escape from The Earth…maybe they’ll still make Earth, I mean they are making two separte “of the Dead” franchises one still with George A. Romero and the other with Ving Rames. I don’t see why they couldn’t have two Escape franchises…
–Socram
This could all be fixed if someone in Hollywood could come up with an original idea.
You know what, you’re right. And I don’t get what the boner is about remaking things, now, from like the late 70s/80s, soon the early 90s. We just saw those movies! And you know what? They were perfectly fine the first time!
Seriously! I think they expect the casual moviegoer to go, “Hey! The Princess Bride? I loved that movie as a kid, I’ll see the new one, too.” Old movies have more time to gain an audience. Heck, I didn’t see The Princess Bride until a few years ago.
And of course, the new movie will be mediocre, because the new director obviously didn’t care about movies as an art form, or they wouldn’t be doing the movie in the first place. They’d be doing their own original thing, or at the very least something besides a remake (on principle). Just my opinion, I probably don’t know what I’m talking about. 🙂
But yeah, money. Originality has the potential to make lots of money, but the easy way out sometimes makes “enough” money to go that route.
I don’t get how some of these directers see a remake as being so different. Some of them bring an entirely new story to a film that is being remade and then it sucks. or they keep to the orignal so much that they might as well have not even bothered. So there is never any happy medium between anybody.
Eight out of ten times the remake is not so good, so why even bother.
Usually those people who direct the remakes aren’t people who have a choice, they’re usually no-bodies (except for someone like Tim Burton who did Planet of the Apes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) who need it to get into the business. Some just do it for the money.