Kirk Douglas famously had the director of Spartacus fired and he brought in his own man, Stanley Kubrick, thinking that Kubrick would give him an easier time. When you have an actor who's much more significant and more powerful than the director, often the director can get kicked off the picture by the leading man. 'John was like, ‘That ain’t happening.’ He was worried the thing would happen to him that happened to the director of Spartacus. One of the many things you'll learn from these discussions is that Snake would have been played by Charles Bronson, had Carpenter not put his foot down. In terms of interviews, Walsh spoke with 'everyone who’s alive who worked on the film.' That included Carpenter, Russell, Adrienne Barbeau (Maggie), producer Debra Hill, cinematographer Dean Cundey, and more. The whole film’s social breakdown is based on things being rotten at the very top.' It’s all about how democracy has fallen apart and how our leaders have let us down. 'So when President Richard Nixon resigned ahead of being impeached, John Carpenter wrote this. 'The film was written as a result or as a reaction to the Watergate scandal,' Walsh said. When the President of the United States (played by another Halloween vet, Donald Pleasance) accidentally crashes in the city, the eyepatch-wearing antihero Snake Plissken (Russell) is brought in to rescue the commander-in-chief from the clutches of the Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes). Written by Carpenter and Nick Castle (the man who played Michael Myers in the original Halloween), Escape From New York takes place in an alternate version of 1997 where Manhattan has been sealed off from the rest of the country as a maximum-security prison. James Cameron lining up a glass matte shot That was really pleasing to find those connections and see that they all started in this book.' I just think how much Roger Corman and his work made the film a success and a real possibility and the springboard for people like Jim Cameron and others from that.

We have lovely photos of Jim Cameron in the book, working on matte paintings. 'He was much more involved than assisting people.

'I knew that James Cameron had worked on the picture, but I didn't know to what extent,' Walsh explained. Walsh discussed his exciting foray into the CarpenterVerse and provided us with several exclusive stills from the new book - one of which shows a pre- Terminator James Cameron working on a matte painting for Escape From New York on behalf of Roger Corman's New World Pictures (the famed low-budget company was brought aboard to handle visual effects after Star Wars vet John Dykstra proved to be too expensive). Recently hopping on another Zoom call with SYFY WIRE, Mr. On sale next month, Escape from New York: The Official Story of the Filmhails from author John Walsh, who spoke with SYFY WIRE last year about his publication chronicling the ill-fated production of Flash Gordon. To ring in that commendable milestone, Titan Books and StudioCanal will release an in-depth look at the making of the dystopian classic with never-before-seen images and interviews. We are, of course, referring to Escape From New York, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. It's the film that gave the world Snake Plissken and kicked off John Carpenter's multi-project collaboration with Kurt Russell.

Escape from new york