Kurt Russell’s post-apocalyptic Western Escape from L.A. may not look like it on the surface, but it’s a loose remake of John Wayne hidden gem El Dorado. This John Carpenter movie was the belated sequel to Escape from New York, with Kurt Russell returning as the one-eyed outlaw Snake Plissken.

Despite 15 years of anticipation, Escape from L.A. proved a financial disappointment, grossing only $25 million (or $64 million when adjusted for inflation) on a $50 million budget. It also received atrocious reviews for its terrible CGI and for being more of a remix than a true sequel.

Its performance also led to a planned third film dubbed Escape from Earth being cancelled. Still, the movie has earned a cult following in recent years for its tongue-in-cheek tone and game cast. While Russell famously based his Snake performance on Clint Eastwood, Carpenter based Escape from L.A. on another Western icon’s movie.

Escape From L.A. Is Heavily Inspired By John Wayne Western El Dorado

Rio Bravo is one of Carpenter’s favorite movies, which sees the jailhouse of John Wayne’s sheriff besieged by killers who want to break out a prisoner. While not quite a true sequel, Wayne and director Howard Hawks followed it with 1967’s El Dorado, which paired Wayne’s character with Robert Mitchum’s drunken sheriff.

Carpenter admitted in a 1997 Total Film interview that he was stumped about making a sequel until he drew inspiration from El Dorado. Specifically, he borrowed Hawks’ approach to the 1967 Western, stating “[Hawks] made the same movie structurally, but changed the details.”

In the same way El Dorado inverted everything about Rio Bravo, Carpenter did the same with Escape from L.A. In the sequel, Snake is sent to kill somebody instead of saving them, and instead of being the worst prison in the world, L.A. is technically the only free place left in the sequel’s nightmarish vision of America.

El Dorado was full of these inversions; Wayne plays a gunfighter instead of a lawman, while his cocky sidekick (played by James Caan) isn’t a cracksH๏τ like his Rio Bravo counterpart, but was instead a master knife thrower. Every key character or moment from Rio Bravo or Escape from New York gets a reprise in their sequels.

For all its post-apocalyptic trimmings, Escape from L.A. is very much a Western in its construction. It has a badᴀss outlaw sent to a tough town to clean things up, it’s only that the horses have been replaced by motorcycles and Snake doesn’t wait to pull his revolver in a duel.

El Dorado & Escape From L.A. Are Remakes Masquerading As Sequels

Carpenter’s filmography is littered with nods to Westerns and Howard Hawks, so it’s little surprise Carpenter drew inspiration from the late Western filmmaker for the only sequel he ever directed. That said, both El Dorado and Escape from L.A. were widely critiqued for being remakes instead of true sequels.

Of course, this can be a common complaint of most sequels, but in the cases of Escape from L.A. and El Dorado, it’s very true. They took the blueprints of the previous film and switched details around, but anyone who’s seen the originals is going to know how things play out.

In both cases, having the same director return to the same sandbox is what makes them interesting. Even working within an identical structure they’re not really the same movies, with Hawks and Carpenter interrogating different concepts and themes in their “sequels.”

Escape from L.A. is a fairly scathing critique of Hollywood and the movie business, and having the sequel just replay the original’s story is a glib gag in itself. It has Steve Buscemi as a sleazy, traitorous agent, everybody complains about Snake’s height – a common movie star complaint – and posits sequels are always doomed to recycle the same narrative.

El Dorado isn’t a classic like Rio Bravo, but it’s a тιԍнтer, more action-packed experience. It’s the breezier of the two movies, and really doubles down on the male bonding aspect of the original.

Escape From L.A. Isn’t The First Time John Carpenter Remade A John Wayne Western

Carpenter got into movies to make Westerns, but the genre had died out by the time he became a major name. That’s why so many of Carpenter’s films have a Western framework, like They Live, Vampires or even Big Trouble in Little China. This latter was originally written as a Western, before budget cuts forced a modern update.

Two of Carpenter’s most obvious Westerns in disguise are his second film ᴀssault on Precinct 13, and his second last sci-fi chiller, Ghosts of Mars. Both involve cops and criminals working together when a police station is attacked by a relentless horde bent on their destruction.

Both films are riffs on Wayne’s Rio Bravo trilogy, comprised of Rio Bravo, El Dorado and Rio Lobo. Carpenter’s films use the basic framework of Rio Bravo (an isolated locale, honor between men, not running away from overwhelming odds, etc), while he adds his own genre sensibilities to it.

ᴀssault on Precinct 13 and Ghosts of Mars lean towards the horror genre way more than Hawks’ films ever did. Still, the DNA of Rio Bravo runs throughout both, down to Ghosts of Mars‘ ending directly referencing El Dorado as the movie’s two heroes banter while heading off on their next adventure.

Source: Total Film