With an Escape from New York remake still in development hell, Kurt Russell, who starred as the iconic Snake Plissken in John Carpenter’s 1981 thriller, talked to IGN about his thoughts on remaking the film – and remaking movies in general.

“There’s nothing wrong with the concept of doing something,” Russell told the site of the proposed Escape from New York reboot. “I just think that my only thing about that is, when I think of remakes — and I’ve done remakes that I didn’t think should have been done — I only think remakes make sense if you take an idea that was flawed, a script that was flawed, perhaps they didn’t have enough money to make it correctly, maybe a character or two was not particularly well-played or could be fixed. If it had a problem that you’d say, ‘God, if you just do that, that’s a great movie,’ or, ‘If that movie had so-and-so in it, it could be great! Imagine that with so-and-so in it. Imagine that done this way.’ Then that to me makes perfect sense as to why they would do a remake.“

He really hits the nail on the head, although I think taking a great film and letting the director do his own thing (i.e. Dawn of the Dead) is another great way to approach remaking a classic.

As for Russell appearing in the New York reboot as Snake, he doubts that will happen:

“He’s a great character. But no, I’m too old. Snake’s a man in his prime. He’s an American man absolutely in his prime. He’s a really good character.”

It would be nice at least see him cameo.