Fox has won a bidding war to remake John Carpenter's 1981 cult classic Escape From New York, Deadline reports. The hope, of course, is to launch a new franchise.

StudioCanal, which sold the rights, had been developing a remake with Joel Silver's Silver Pictures since at least 2010, with plans for a trilogy announced as recently as March 2013. Actors ranging from Jeremy Renner to Timothy Olyphant to Charlie Hunnam had been floated to play Snake Plissken, the role originated by Kurt Russell.

The original was set in a dystopian near-future 1997, where a crime-ridden United States had transformed Manhattan into a walled maximum-security prison. When Air Force One crashes following a hijacking, a former special forces operative turned convicted criminal Snake Plissken is offered a pardon if he rescues the president of the United States -- now held hostage -- and retrieves a crucial cassette tape within 24 hours.

Russell reprised the role in 1996's Escape From L.A., also directed by co-written by Carpenter. According to Deadline, Carpenter will serve as an executive producer of the remake, over which he will "exert creative influence."