This is how Snake Plissken would handle a press junket.

Let’s recap: several days ago Kurt Russell, when asked his opinion of the Escape from New York remake that had been announced, reacted with anger, profanity and more than a little bit of Macho Actor Ego Bravado. And now, just a day or so later, Russell seems to have been reined back from the angry rhetoric into the more PR-friendly – but hopelessly dull – junket-speak.

I mean, c’mon! He’s out pimping Grindhouse in which he plays a ruthless killer with a weatherbeaten, scarred face who drives a fast muscle car that murders people – and someone’s discouraging him from acting angry during press interviews?

Here’s what Russell originally had to say, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly:

I will say that when I was told who was going to play Snake Plissken, my initial reaction was ”Oh, man!”… I didn’t play Snake Plissken, I created him!… F**k that! I am Snake Plissken!… He’s a fascinating character. In fact, he’s the most complex character I’ve ever played.

But now Russell’s changed his tune. From Cinematical:

They’re gonna remake The Thing, they talked about remaking Escape from New York. You know what…whatever, and good on you… it is interesting to create a role that is iconic, and then have somebody go do that. That’s interesting.

That sounds a lot like a soundbyte-friendly actor supporting his movie: safe and harmless and designed to appeal to Middle American Movie Ticket Buyers. But I also think that his turnaround isn’t genuine. When someone says “that’s interesting” it usually means that they won’t or can’t say what they really want to. The idea of an Escape remake stings Russell; he just doesn’t want to come across as a jerk about it. Or maybe he’s trying to support John Carpenter, who will be involved in the remake and has something to lose by Russell bad-mouthing it.

But really, why shouldn’t he? I would think that Russell fanning the flames of bitterness over the Escape remake could only help the pre-release hype for Grindhouse, not to mention that some additional public bad-assery would have bolstered our collective memory of the One True Plissken.

In fact I can think of five ways that Russell could have made the news of an Escape From New York remake a bit more memorable…

How the Real Snake Plissken Could Have Done It

1. Russell and John Carpenter stage a shirtless fistfight in which a big, fat check for the Escape remake rights is dangling over the ring. An easy prize for the only man left alive.
2. Russell wears tight, striped Spandex pants for the duration of the Grindhouse press junket. Any interviewer who references the pants gets a grenade shoved into their mouth and is thrown out a window.
3. Using the hypnotic effect of late-70s-era pictures of Adrienne Barbeau, Russell manages to convince everybody that Escape from L.A. never happened.
4. Russell shocks the world by revealing that he’s actually directed every movie he’s ever been in, with the obvious exception of Soldier.
5. In a publicity-friendly “passing of the torch”, Russell invites his Plissken successor Gerard Butler to a photoshoot. As hundreds of entertainment photographers start snapping pictures, Russell reaches over and stabs Butler in the eye in a move that establishes Russell’s true dominance as a cinematic badass, but which also ironically cements Butler’s ability to play Snake in the future.

See? Just about any negative can be turned into a positive! Russell opens up the Grindhouse on April 6th.