300 star Gerald Butler was supposed to play Snake Plissken, the convict and war hero who's sent into a futuristic Manhattan which has been turned into a giant maximum security prison to rescue the president of the U.S. after his plane is knocked down by terrorists.

Butler has however pulled out citing "creative differences" and now Terminator 3 director Jonathan Mostow is going to rewrite Black Hawk Down scribe Ken Nolan's original script and has an option to direct.

Len Wiseman who directed the fourth Die Hard movie was attached to direct at one point.

The original 1981 film starred Kurt Russell was written and directed by John Carpenter.

Anyway, you have to be pretty brave or stupid (or both!) to want to remake any movie by cult director Carpenter. Ask Rob Zombie who remade Halloween recently . . .