/
/
/
/
Press - Trivia/Bloopers - Escape From New York
Avco-Embassy Pictures, the studio behind the film, preferred either Charles Bronson or Tommy Lee Jones to play the role of "Snake" Plissken to director/co-writer John Carpenter's choice of Kurt Russell, who at the time was trying to overcome his "lightweight" screen image gained through his appearance in several Disney comedies. Carpenter refused to cast Bronson on the grounds that he was too old. John Carpenter originally wanted Clint Eastwood but couldn't afford him.
Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges were both approached to play "Snake" Plissken", but were uninterested. Kris Kristofferson was considered as a possible candidate for the
lead also, but was not approached due to the failure of Heaven's Gate (1980).
The wire-frame computer graphics on the display screens in the glider were not actually computer graphics. (Computers capable of 3D wire-frame imaging were way too expensive when this was made.) To generate the "wire-frame" images, they built a model of the city, painted it black, attached bright white tape to the model buildings in an orderly grid, and moved a camera through the model city.
A scene in the beginning of the film where Snake and another criminal are robbing a high-security bank, which leads to his arrest and sentence to New York, was in the original script but was cut from the film before release. Previews can be found on the Special Edition LD and the Director's Cut vhs. The whole scene exists on the EFNY SE DVD. This scene was reported to be lost until the work print was turned up in the Hutchinson, Kansas salt mine film depository a while ago.
The 'city at night' scenes were filmed in St. Louis after a recent devastating fire.
The city of St. Louis allowed the production to shut down all the electricity in this part of the town.
Only the Statue Of Liberty shot in the beginning was actually filmed in New York, the rest was in St. Louis and in California. There was still a big mess on the streets when shooting was over and the studio was billed a pretty penny to have it cleaned up.
It was hot shooting in St. Louis and mosquito's were very enjoying explains Isaac Hays.
The bridge portrayed as the "69th St. Bridge" is actually the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, famous for its 22 degree bend in the middle of the bridge. The bridge connects Missouri to Illinois and is now a bicycle-pedestrian bridge.
In the Korean dub of the film, Snake Plissken was called "Cobra" while in the Italian version he was called "Hyena".
While many sources write that the film's production budget was $7 million, John Carpenter himself says the budget was more around $5.5 million.
The film grossed $25.2 million in American theaters in the summer of 1981, with same amount grossed in foreign markets, making an over $50 million mega box-office hit in ratio to John Carpenter's production budget of $5.5-7 million.
Carpenter wrote the script in the 1970s after the Watergate issue. John Carpenter originally wrote the film in the mid-'70s as a reaction to the Watergate scandal, but no studio wanted to make it because it was deemed to be too dark and too violent. The script made fun of presidents so bad that no studio would touch it. That all changed after the success of Halloween (1978).
After the smash success of Halloween, the small studio of Avco-Embassy signed filmmaker John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill to a two-picture deal. The first film from this contract was 1980s The Fog and this film finished out the contract.
Initially, the second film that Carpenter was going to make to finish the contract out was The Philadelphia Experiment but because of script-writing problems, Carpenter junked it for this project, which its initial script-draft he had penned back in the 1970s, and the studio green lighted it.
The final scenes were filmed at the Sepulveda Dam, in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California.
The Duke's Cadillac Fleetwood with the fender-mounted chandeliers is a direct influence in the art car community.
Director Trademark: [John Carpenter] [names] Cronenberg, Romero.
The shot where the helicopter glides over Central Park were actually filmed in San Fernando. The buildings in back were painting by future director James Cameron.
The fight scene in the wrestling ring was filmed in the grand hall of St. Louis' Union Station. This was filmed a few years before renovation when the building was abandoned. While the hall was extremely dilapidated, one can make out the stained glass window representing New York, St. Louis, and San Francisco in the background. This window is still above the front entry into the grand hall from Market Street.
When Snake is fighting the 400-pound guy, Russell was actually afraid for his life. The other actor was so into his role Russell didnt want to work with him.
British actor Donald Pleasence originally turned down the role of the president because he didnt think someone not from America could play the part. Carpenter finally talked him into it by saying, Image you are the love child of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
British actor Donald Pleasence plays the President of the United States without putting on an American accent. The United States constitution requires that the President be a native born citizen of the United States. Pleasence came up with an explanation for how the character came to be both born in the United States and have an English accent, but John Carpenter said that film audiences would not care and would just accept what was depicted.
The woman in the diner is played by Season Hubley, who was, at the time, Kurt Russell's wife. She had just given birth to their son Boston prior to doing this film. It was her first role after Boston's birth.
Kurt Russell helped to design the Snake outfit. He suggested the eye patch.
John Carpenter had a friend who knew a guy in Cleveland named Snake Plissken that everyone thought was dead. He also had a snake tattoo on his chest. This is where Carpenter got the name from and explains why everyone in the movie heard Snake was dead.
Everyone's Coming To New York" is the song sung by the men in drag at the stage show scene where Snake first meets Cabbie. The lyrics are as follows: Shoot a cop, With a gun, The Big Apple is plenty of fun, Stab a priest, With a fork, And you'll spend your vacation in New York, Rob a bank, Take a truck, You can get here by stealing a buck, This is bliss, It's a lark, Honey, everyone's coming to New York! No more Yankees Strike the word from your ears, Play the roulette, There's no more opera at the Met, This is hell, This is fate, But now this is your home and it's great, So rejoice Pop a cork Honey, everyone's coming to New York!
Director of photography Dean Cundey used a special lens - new at the time - to extract the maximum amount of light from night time shoots.
Donald Pleasence drew on his own wartime experiences as a prisoner of war for his performance as the imprisoned President.
The President's downed plane was an old DC-10 bought from an airplane graveyard in Tucson, Arizona. The plane was carved up into 3 separate pieces and trucked into the film's St Louis locations in the dead of night as they didn't have the requisite paperwork.
The production design department would get their props by taking several dump trucks to the local garbage landfill sites and filling them up with junk like broken refrigerators and car shells.
The opening narration is not, as some reported, provided by an uncredited Jamie Lee Curtis. The computer voice in the opening and in the first prison scene is producer Debra Hill.
John Carpenter purchased the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge in St Louis for $1 from the government and then returned it to them for the same amount after filming was completed.
John Carpenter had originally considered the idea of having Hauk tell Snake after he rescued the President that the charges in his neck were a fake and that he was never in any danger and it was all a hoax but Carpenter decided not to use it (until EFLA came along.)
Co-writer Nick Castle came up with the idea for the Cabbie character and also the film's ending.
The first film to be allowed to shoot on Liberty Island underneath the Statue of Liberty.
The model of the city set was repainted and reused for Blade Runner (1982).
The manhole covers in the film were all made out of wood. Real ones would have been far too heavy for the actors.
The original German one-sheet poster prominently misspells Snake's last name as "Plessken".
The running gag used in the film about everybody thinking Snake Plissken was dead was also used in the western, Big Jake (1971).
The final credit is a reference to a strip club and the dancers across the river from St. Louis.
When released in Italy the subtitles mistranslated nuclear fission as nuclear fixation.
Maggie's death scene was shoot in John Carpenter's and Adrienne Barbeau's old garage before they split up.
Maggie's character was written with Adrienne Barbeau in mind.
Kurt Russell has stated that Escape From New York is his favourite of all his films. Snake Plissken is also his favourite character of the ones he's played.
The idea of being put a wig on at one point of the film was improvised by Donald Pleasence on the set.
The cover art on the DVD release for Escape From New York features Snake Plissken in front of New York City engulfed in flames. Snake is holding a gun in his right hand, and his left bicep is exposed. On his arm is a snake tattoo, but in the movie a different snake tattoo only appears on his stomach while his left arm is conspicuously blank. He also holds a much different gun; a rifle as opposed to a silenced Ingram MAC-10.
References
Escape From New York is a legendary pizza
parlor on Portland, OR's artistic 23rd St. It features huge wall murals with a
New York City theme and pizzas (whole or by the slice) with slices over a foot
in length. It's popular among Portlanders and tourists from all walks of life. William Gibson credits the character Bob Hauk as an inspiration for his character "Armitage" in the novel Neuromancer. In that novel, Armitage forces the protagonist to cooperate in a manner similar to the way Snake's cooperation is coerced.
J.J. Abrams,
producer of the 2008 film
Cloverfield,
mentioned that a scene in his film, which shows the head of the
Statue of Liberty
crashing into a New York street, was inspired by the poster for Escape from New
York.Bloopers:
Errors in geography: New York's 59th St Bridge is referred to as the "69th St Bridge."
Miscellaneous: Italian subtitles mistranslate "fission" as "fixation."
Revealing mistakes: Walls in the "Choc full o' Nuts" building clearly made of styrofoam.
Continuity: Baseball bat falls off the head of the gladiator, but is back again in subsequent shots.
Crew or equipment visible: You can see a crew member giving Isaac Hayes a "stand-up" cue quite visibly in the left side of the screen when The Duke is quieting the Madison Square Garden crowd.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: At the start, the scientist tells Snake they cannot neutralize the explosion until 15 minutes before the deadline. In other words, it can be neutralized anywhere from 15 minutes to a fraction of a second before the deadline, but no sooner. Therefore, it's OK that Snake lets the timer run down to 6 seconds.
Continuity: Maggie fires 7 shots from a 6 shot capacity revolver at the Duke as he bears down on her on the bridge.
Crew or equipment visible: Snake and the others return to the elevator on top of the World Trade Centre (immediately following the loss of the jet-glider). Sticking out near the jam, you can see the fingers of a crew member pushing the right-side door closed.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The president is clearly British. In order to qualify for US presidency you must be a natural-born US citizen and have lived in the US for 14 years, but he could have been born in the US and grown up in the UK, moving back as an adult, or even born abroad to US parents.
Continuity: Snake's time limit was stated as 22 hours, but his Master Life Clock started at 22:59:57, or 23 hours.
Crew or equipment visible: Crew fingers visible closing elevator door after failed escape run to glider. Seen on widescreen DVD edition.
Factual Errors: When Snake lands on top of the World Trade Center tower, his altimeter indicates less than 200. The tower was over 1300 feet.
Escape From L.A. - Trivia
Back in the late 1980s, Carpenter and Russell decided that it was time to try and make a second Snake Plissken film. They set the project up at DeLaurentis Studios and ended up commissioning screenwriter Coleman Luck to write a draft of Escape From LA. Supposedly Carpenter & Russell were somewhat pleased with the script, but had wanted to do a rewrite. Unfortunately, it never came to be because Dino De Laurentis' company went under so the project died. The project remained dormant following that time until the 1989 earthquake and the L.A. riots revived it. Carpenter and Kurt Russell got together to write with their long-time collaborator Debra Hill. Carpenter
insists that it was Russell's persistence that allowed the film to be made since "Snake Plissken was a character he loved and wanted to play again." Principal filming began in December, 1995.
Two different Escape From L.A. screenplays were written before the movie was made: One by Coleman Luck in 1985/86, the other one by English screenwriter Peter Briggs, of "Aliens vs Predator" fame. The Coleman Luck versνon was based on an outline by Carpenter & Russell. Carpenter would later describe the script as "Too light, too campy." The Peter Briggs version was written "on spec", meaning he did it on his own, without getting paid for it, in the hope of selling it to the rights owners. However, they, (the right owners & Carpenter & Russell), never got to read it, as it wasn't distributed or promoted at all.
At the beginning of the film, Kurt Russell wears his costume from the original film, which still fit after 15 years.
Kurt Russell practiced playing basketball between scenes as he wanted to make all of his shots legitimately in the basketball scene later on. He made all of those shots purely on his own talent, even the full-court one.
Kurt Russell came up with the reoccurring line "I thought you'd be taller." based on real life commentaries from people he has met.
When Snake is done playing basketball and tries to escape through the gate, the bald, black guard wearing sunglasses holding a gun is actually Isaac Hayes (uncredited cameo), who played the Duke of New York in Escape from New York (1981).
Hershe's voice was originally gonna be done by Isaac Hayes.
In an homage to the famed studio tour where Jaws pops out of the water, a shark tries to bite the mini-sub just as it passes the sign for Universal Studios.
There are several references to Snake Plissken and the city of Cleveland. This is an in joke reference to a friend John Carpenter's who knew a guy from Cleveland named Snake Plissken where Carpenter got the name for the character when he was writing Escape from New York (1981)
During the climactic battle scene, when Steve Buscemi's character is hanging off the helicopter, several stores are visible in the matte shot behind him. One of the prominent buildings is clearly marked "Miniatures", a reference to the filmmaking technique.
The orphan in the cap that Snake Plissken makes eye contact with while being escorted down the hallway was played by 'Kurt Russell (I) 's son Wyatt.
The movie was a notorious failure on release, making around $25 million (just half its budget) at the US box office. Many reviews criticized the film for being too violent or for being too similar to the original film.
According to an interview with John Carpenter, Kurt Russell not only came up with but wrote the entire ending of the movie.
John Carpenter only had 9 total weeks of total of post-production and 1 day to look at his rough cut before it had to be sent to Paramount for release. In an interview with Robert Rodriguez, Carpenter said he wished he could've had 15 weeks of post-production.
In an interview John Carpenter says he has 3 hours of movie.
: Escape From L.A. - Bloopers
Continuity: When Snake first encounters Cuervo in his limousine, his head tracks at three times the speed of Cuervo's car.
Continuity: When Snake is attempting his fifth shot at the basket, the automatic timer shows 3 seconds twice.
Continuity: In the final fight scene between Snake and Cuervo, Cuervo's knife disappears occasionally from the ground.
Continuity: The wristwatch counter shows 6 hours 59 minutes. Then he is told he has seven and a half hours left.
Continuity: The size of the dot that Map of the Stars Eddie paints on the disk changes.
Continuity: When Snake approaches the Happy Kingdom amusement park on the hang glider (with the others) the sun is just coming up. Half an hour later (in the story), when Snake makes it off LA, it is dead of night.
Continuity: During the fight after the basketball game, Cuervo drops the black box twice.
Continuity: Near the end of the movie when he is escaping in the helicopter the bazooka is empty. You can see through barrel. Then four seconds later the bazooka fires.
References
q
Solid Snake Snake Plissken was the inspiration for Solid Snake, hero of the Metal Gear series, and the plot was also the inspiration for Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (sneak into an indomitable fortress to rescue a VIP and an important tape/cartridge that determines the fate of the world). Furthermore, in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Solid Snake goes by the alias of Iroquois Pliskin. Metal Gear also uses the same font in its logo for the first game as Escape From New York. There are several other references to Escape from New York in the Metal Gear series. Otacon, the scientist ally of Solid Snake is based off of Brain. In every Metal Gear Solid game, there is a part where your character is left with nothing after being knocked out and tortured, very similar to how Snake Plisskin escaped from The Duke. A mined area is also a trend in the Metal Gear series. In a trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4, of a fairly jokey atmosphere has Solid Snake sit down in a deck chair much like Snake Plissken does in Escape from New York and LA. Also, Lee Van Cleef, who starred in the film, serves as the basis of the MGS villain Revolver Ocelot, for his portrayal of "Angel Eyes" in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. His famous eye-patch is also referenced by Naked Snake/Big Boss and Solidus Snake.
Hoss Delgado The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy have a character named Hoss Delgado. Hoss is modeled after Ash from Evil Dead and Snake Plissken. The cartoon airs on Cartoon Network. Hoss has Snake's gung ho, take no prisoners attitude as well as Ash's replaced arm. Hoss usually has a metal fist or a crossbow for shooting chainsaws. He also wears the clothing of Snake in LA. The television special "Underfist" also shares a combined resemblance with both Snake Plissken and Ash from the "Evil Dead"
Ingram Plisken Snake Plissken's name is referenced in Super Robot Wars character Ingram Plisken.
Matrix, a character from the classic CGI cartoon, ReBoot, was very likely inspired by Snake Plissken, due to his similar appearance and attitude, as well as his insistence upon being addressed a certain way ("Call me Matrix!").
