Kurt Russell has slammed Hollywood's reliance on bleeding everything it can from existing, iconic characters.
As we head into 2024, remakes, sequels, reboots and 'requels' have become commonplace, while there is a definite trend of studios preferring to develop projects based on existing intellectual properties rather than focusing on something new.
That is why we are faced with a plethora of comic book movie adaptations, for example.
One man who isn't a fan of this trend is Russell, who has featured in sequels like Escape to L. A. and the Fast Saga but whom believes there should be a bigger focus on fresh ideas.
"I come from a different era. I wasn’t interested in expanding financially what we had created in terms of a character." he said in a breakdown of his most iconic characters with GQ.
"I get business people, sure. We could do this with that, or this with that.
"Let’s do something new. Let’s do something fresh. Let’s create another iconic character rather than saying ‘what can we bleed off this iconic character’. You don’t look at them as iconic characters. You can refer to them as that, if they become that, but in the day-to-day you’re running around having a good time, trying to make it work."
READ MORE: 'I'm a movie guy' - Kurt Russell on rejecting Metal Gear Solid voice role
Escape from New York remake
There have been several directors linked with helming a remake or sequel to Escape from New York over the last decade including Brett Ratner, Leigh Wannell and Robert Rodriguez.
It has now been taken on by the team at Radio Silence (Tyler Gillett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Chad Villella) who are behind the hugely successful last two Scream movies.
In 2022, it was confirmed that their movie would be a sequel, not a remake.
“We’re very excited to be working with 20th Century on that,” Villella told Entertainment Weekly.
“We’re developing our take, and hopefully, it will be going to script sometime in the New Year, and just really starting to lay the groundwork for that. But very early stages.”
“Not a remake,” added Gillett.
"That’s one of those properties that you can’t , it’s sort of untouchable to us, and lives in its own stratosphere in terms of how important it is to us, and how much we love it. So it’ll be not unlike Scream, I think, a nod to, and a continuation of, what we love about those characters and that world.”
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