Escape from L.A.
Short description
Escape from L.A. is set in a future version of the United States in which a huge earthquake has torn Los Angeles away from the mainland. The city has been turned into a penal colony where the government sends people it deems undesirable under a repressive moral regime. The president's daughter has stolen a device capable of disabling electrical technology worldwide and has fled with it into the city, where it has fallen into the hands of a revolutionary leader. Snake Plissken, the convict who once escaped from New York, is sent in after her, with a virus in his blood that will kill him if he does not finish the job in time.
The film is a sequel to Escape from New York, made by the same director, John Carpenter. It is the eighteenth of the twenty-two features he has directed, following Village of the Damned in 1995 and preceding Vampires in 1998. Carpenter wrote the screenplay with Debra Hill and Kurt Russell, who also produced; Russell returns as Plissken. Stacy Keach, Steve Buscemi, A.J. Langer, Cliff Robertson and Bruce Campbell appear among the thirty credited cast members, with 117 crew credited.
Released in August 1996, the film cost about 50 million dollars and returned roughly 42 million worldwide, so it did not recover its budget from cinemas. Its ratings are modest and consistent across sources: 5.7 on IMDb from about 86,000 votes, 5.9 on TMDB from over 1,600 votes, and 5.9 from 60 film critics' reviews. Audience and critical responses are closely aligned.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the beginning of the film, Kurt Russell is wearing a costume from the original movie.
- The film was shot in three American cities – Los Angeles (California), Miami (Florida), and New Braunfels (Texas).
- The filmmakers created a set over a kilometer long to depict the devastated Sunset Boulevard.
- During breaks in filming, Kurt Russell constantly played basketball. He wanted the scene where his character is forced to play basketball to look as realistic as possible. All of Snake’s shots that we see in the film were made by Kurt, including the full-court shot.
- During the final shootout, before the Steve Buscemi character falls from the helicopter, several miniature building models can be seen in the background, one of which is labeled “Models.”
- When Snake Plissken finishes playing basketball and tries to leave through the gate, he approaches a tall, bald guard. This is Isaac Hayes, who played the Duke of New York in “Escape from New York” (1981).
- As in “Escape from New York” (1981), Jamie Lee Curtis narrates the opening of the film, and her name is once again not mentioned in the credits.
- The name of the main character (“Snake” Plissken) was not invented by John Carpenter. It was the real name of a guy from Cleveland, where the director was working on the script for “Escape from New York” at the time.
- The screenplay, written by Coleman Luck, was approved in 1985, but the film was in development for over 10 years. John Carpenter later described the script as “too light, too vulgar.” The project sat on the shelf until the earthquake in January 1994 and the riots in Los Angeles revived the idea of making the film. In July, Carpenter, Kurt Russell, and their longtime collaborator Debra Hill got together and the three of them began discussing the impact of the earthquake on the residents of Los Angeles. Developing the theme of violence and its connection to the future of the country, they decided to write a new script. Carpenter claims that only Russell’s persistence made the film happen, because “Snake Plissken was a character he loved and wanted to play again.”
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
