Leigh Whannell Will Write Fox’s ‘Escape from New York’ Reboot

Back in 2015, 20th Century Fox secured the film rights for John Carpenter‘s 1980 film Escape From New York. In 2016, things were moving forward with a script by Luther‘s Neal Cross that was going to be directed by Robert Rodriguez, but that ultimately didn’t happen.

Mere days after Leigh Whannell was announced as the writer and director of Blumhouse’s Invisible Man film for an attempted reboot of Universal’s Dark Universe (Monsterverse), it looks like he’ll also be trying to Escape From New York.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Whannell will write the script for a new reboot of the property (no word on if he’s interested in directing yet) with John Carpenter executive producing, along with Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman producing.

THR says Whannell’s vision for the project will have elements of the original, but with new ideas as well. There is apparently a big goal of keeping Escape From New York as a “less bloated” science fiction remake.

We’re semi-interested, especially with Carpenter onboard.

We’ll let you know what we hear about possible casting as the project gets some momentum.