Movies
R.I.P. Jon Polito (‘The Crow’, ‘Miller’s Crossing’) Passes Away at 65
Very sad news coming out this morning as director John McNaughton has posted on his personal Facebook that actor Jon Polito has passed away. He was 65 years old.
Polito got his start in the early 80’s as Thomas ‘Three Finger Brown’ Lucchese in the TV mini-series “The Gangster Chronicles”. He has starred in several films from the Coen Brothers, including Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, and The Big Lebowski. For many of us, we’ll remember him most vividly as Gideon in The Crow or as Nikos Stano in the “Tales From the Crypt” episode “Deadline”.
For me, seeing Polito on the screen meant I was going to enjoy the film. Something about his presence just put a big smile on my face. He had this great ability to morph from one emotion to another within the span of a second, his entire body shifting along with that change. He was wildly charismatic, very funny, and he will be sorely missed.
We send our deepest condolences to his friends and family. Rest in peace, Jon. Thank you.
It was announced two years ago that filmmaking team Radio Silence (Ready or Not, Scream, Scream VI, Abigail) were working on bringing Snake Plissken back to the screen for a brand new movie based on John Carpenter’s Escape from New York for 20th Century Studios, with John Carpenter himself on board as an executive producer of the upcoming movie.
The project had originally been described as a “reboot,” but filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett had described it as more of a “requel.” Unfortunately, the pair revealed to Comicbook.com that they’re no longer developing the requel and have parted ways with the project.
Gillett told the outlet, “We are not, unfortunately. I think titles like that bounce around for a while and I think they’ve tried to get that out of the blocks a few times. I think it’s just ultimately a tricky rights issue thing. There’s a clock on it and we just weren’t in a position to make the clock, ultimately. But who knows? I think, in hindsight, it feels crazy that we would think we would, post-Scream, step into a John Carpenter franchise. You never know. There’s still interest in it and we’ve had a few conversations about it but we’re not attached in any official capacity.”
Escape from New York was set in 1997. “When the U.S. president crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber is sent in to rescue him.”
In Escape from LA, also directed by John Carpenter, “Snake Plissken is once again called in by the United States government to recover a potential doomsday device from Los Angeles, now an autonomous island where undesirables are deported.”
Radio Silence is fresh off of helming gory vampire movie Abigail. It’s the third vampire movie from the Universal Monsters brand in the past year, the film scaring up $34.7 million at the worldwide box office these past few weeks. That gives it a higher worldwide gross than both The Last Voyage of the Demeter ($21.7 million) and Renfield ($26.4 million), and it’s also the most critically successful of the three vampire movies. Abigail also just landed on Premium VOD, so you can watch at home now.
Stay tuned for additional details on the Escape from New York requel, and what’s next for Radio Silence.
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