Bollywood: Why Prisoners Of The Ghostland Will Be Nic Cage's Escape From New York

Nicolas Cage's upcoming action-horror epic Prisoners Of The Ghostland is gearing up to be his version of Escape From New York. John Carpenter's Escape From New York is a 1981 action movie starring Kurt Russell, who plays a legendary outlaw named Snake Plissken. Snake is forced to infiltrate New York - which in the movie's grim future has been transformed into a walled prison - to rescue the kidnapped President. The movie not only helped Russell become a movie star, but it would also influence countless movies and games like Metal Gear Solid.

Carpenter is famously allergic to sequels, but he helmed his only direct follow-up to one of his own movies with 1996's Escape From L.A. While the movie proved Russell was still awesome in the role, the movie was basically a remake of the original right down to the same story beats, and its blend of goofy humor and cheap-looking CG saw it receive largely mixed reviews. It was also a box-office disappointment, leading to early plans for a third movie dubbed Escape From Earth to be scrapped.

A planned Escape From New York remake has been in the works for years, with Leigh Whannell currently linked to pen the screenplay. The upcoming 2021 Nic Cage movie Prisoners Of The Ghostland will beat them to the punch, as it's already sounding like a wild remix of Escape From New York. The Nicolas Cage Rotten Tomatoes meter may not have been terribly fresh in the last decade, but the likes of Color Out Of Space and Mandy proves he can still make smart choices, and he first raised buzz for Prisoners Of The Ghostland in 2018 when he called it the "wildest" movie he'd ever made - high praise indeed.

Prisoners Of The Ghostland cast Cage as an outlaw named Hero, who is outfitted with a jumpsuit loaded with grenades and forced to rescue a woman from a supernatural wasteland called the "Ghostland." This is described as an East meets West vortex, and Hero will have to break a curse to save the abducted girl and himself. Aside from Cage, the movie will be the English-language directing debut of Sion Sono - director of cult favorites like Love Exposure and Tokyo Tribe - and aside from Nicolas Cage, the movie co-stars Sofia Boutella, Ed Skrein, Tak Sakaguchi and Bill Moseley as The Governor, who forces Hero on the mission to save his daughter.

Prisoners Of The Ghostland's mix of talent promises it will be a crazy ride, while the basic premise sounds like a checklist of elements from Escape From New York. Both feature notorious outlaws forced to complete a rescue mission in dangerous territory or face death via an implanted explosive. Given Sono's previous work Prisoners Of The Ghostland promises to be a good deal wilder and gorier, and the eventual Escape From New York may look mild in comparison when it finally arrives; after all, it's hard to beat Nicolas Cage fighting evil ghosts in a grenade jumpsuit.

Next: How John Carpenter's The Thing Created The Dog-Thing (Without CGI)

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January 05, 2021 at 05:10AM

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