Despite having interest from both Gerard Butler and Jeremy Renner (who has about as full of a slate as any actor could have), New Line and Warner Bros decided to let their option lapse, relegating Snake to New York City for the foreseeable future. Perhaps it was the fact that their attached director, Breck Eisner, last laid his hands on the lamentable The Crazies, which perhaps didn’t give too much hope to breathing new life into source material that didn’t see the widespread clamoring that many other reboots promise.

Somewhere, an eyepatch propmaster in North Hollywood picks up the phone to tell his kids that there might not be a Christmas this year. (Deadline)

Like Tim Burton and Jon Favreau before him, it looks like Breck Eisner may have found his muse. The Escape From New York remaker is eager to re-team with his Crazies lead, Timothy Olyphant, and have him slip into Snake Plissken’s iconic eye patch. Which was originally worn and sweated on by Kurt Russell in John Carpenter‘s film.

Olyphant excels at kicking people’s asses (usually while wearing a cowboy hat) on-screen, but I don’t know if he’s quite right for Snake Plissken. Plus, that eye patch probably smells really gamey by now. Keep in mind, this is merely Eisner’s dream casting. Certainly not a done deal, as he himself pointed out to MovieHole:

Creatively, he would be great for it. We have not yet discussed internally within the studio who will play Snake Plissken. There are many factors that go into those discussions. First and foremost, obviously, is the creative one. We can’t make the movie unless we get the perfect Snake Plissken, and that’s a tall order. There are very few guys that could do it. He would definitely be one of the guys who could. There is no question about that.

Really? There have been no talks as to who will take the lead in the studio’s blockbuster action movie? Yeah, right. Let’s just poke out Gerard Butler‘s eye and get it over with.

Those who have always wished they could see Snake Plissken run around with the burnt-out facades of ruined Starbucks locations behind him have cause to celebrate. It’s been announced that Breck Eisner is in talks to pull the let’s-get-out-of-this-joint action-thriller Escape from New York, out of development hell.

Breck Eisner, who directed Overtures’ remake of "The Crazies," is in negotiations to helm the remake of "Escape From New York" for New Line.

The remake has been a top priority for the company, which picked up the rights in March 2007, with Gerard Butler attached to star and Ken Nolan writing the script.

The project then veered into development hell, losing Butler but amassing a penal colony of writers, among them Jonathan Mostow and Allan Loeb, and collecting then losing director Len Wiseman.

Eisner’s boarding should bring "Escape" back on track as New Line, sticking with the Loeb draft, tries to mix an origin story for anti-hero Snake Plissken and merge it with the story of the 1981 original.

No word yet on when the Rock will resign himself to star with a brooding sigh. "Yeah, sure. Pass me that eye-patch."  But expect that news soon. (THR)