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Joel Silver planning Escape from New York trilogy

It’s been on and off more times than a ballooned condom, alas Silver Pictures and Studio Canal are now on the case to do something with the long-lingering “Escape from New York” brand.

A remake of the 1981 classic, which starred Kurt Russell in the iconic role of Snake Plissken, was gearing up to go at New Line a couple of years back under the direction of, erm, Brett Ratner. Like most of Rat’s projects, it fell apart. New Line lost the rights, and now Joel Silver’s crowd has them.

According to Deadline, “Lethal Weapon” producer Silver and his new buds at Studio Canal are planning an “Escape from New York” trilogy; it’d encompass an origin story, setting-up the events that eventually lead to Snake Plissken breaking into Manhattan, now a prison, to free the President. And in the third, he’d take on Bane and pass on the eye-patch to a young cop, of course.

No word on who might be don Snake Plissken’s eyepatch this time around, though with a trilogy being planned it’s in all probability that a youngster – say, a Hemsworth, a Gosling or a “Twilight” escapee – is being eyed.

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