Escape From New York Sequel Directors Invented A New Word To Describe The Movie
The upcoming Escape from New York remake is being labeled a requel
Right now, with the sixth Scream movie right around the corner, plenty of fans have made the time to revisit last year’s fifth movie that reunited stars from the original film like Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox with newer stars, including Wednesday actor Jenna Ortega. The same Radio Silence directorial team (comprised of Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin) behind that film offered an exclusive interview to Comicbook.com about not only the upcoming Scream 6 but also the Escape From New York (requel) film they have been working on.
While fans of that older John Carpenter franchise have been speculating about whether the new film will be a reboot or a remake, these filmmakers clarified that their Escape From New York will be a “requel,” meaning that it returns to the themes and subject matter of the original while neither serving as a sequel nor a remake.
Of course, the filmmakers wouldn’t have been able to call their new Escape From New York film a requel if they hadn’t invented the word for their last Scream movie. The Scream films have always served as meta-commentary on horror, complete with killers who want to emulate the terror they have seen onscreen, so Scream 5 took things to the next level.
That movie’s killers were inspired by the Stab movies (the in-universe, loose adaptations of previous Scream movies), but after getting disappointed by the later films of their favorite franchise, they tried to do something bold and new so that their real-life murders would inspire good horror rather than the other way around.
How does this word coined in the Scream franchise help explain Escape From New York being a requel, though? In the interview, even as the filmmakers demurred about whether Kurt Russell could appear in their new film (either as Snake Plisskin or someone else entirely), they confirmed the requel status by saying “there’s no way to remake how great that movie is” and that it “would be a fool’s errand to try.”
Instead of trying to recreate the unforgettable magic of that first John Carpenter film in the franchise, the directors will “try to borrow what we love from it and find a new way to put the package together,” which is the same approach they took to bringing the Scream franchise back to life.
While making Escape From New York a requel gives the filmmakers the chance to do their own thing, they willingly admit that they “are gluttons for punishment” for returning to franchises made famous by iconic filmmakers such as Wes Craven and now, John Carpenter.
As for Carpenter, while he was much more hands-on with the development of the recent Halloween movies, it looks like he has nothing to do with this latest adaptation. For better (we all remember how bad Escape From L.A. was, right?) or for worse, the new film is going to be made without his involvement.
Before Scream 5 came out last year, the idea of a new Escape From New York (whether a reboot, remake, requel, or anything else) being good seemed like a long shot. But given how great the return of Ghostface really was, we’re willing to give these filmmakers the benefit of the doubt. Though if it has any parts as cringeworthy as Escape From L.A.’s surfing and basketball scenes, we might just have to walk out of the theater.
