It has been nearly thirty years since the Wolfgang Petersen-directed action thriller “Air Force One” hit cinemas.
Harrison Ford starred as the U.S. President who attempts to rescue everyone onboard when a group of terrorists hijack his plane Air Force One.
Co-stars included Gary Oldman as the lead terrorist, Glenn Close as the Vice President, and a bunch of notable character actors in supporting roles including William H. Macy, Jurgen Prochnow, Dean Stockwell, Paul Guilfoyle, Xander Berkeley and Andrew Divoff.
Recently the film’s writer Andrew Marlowe spoke with SyFy about the film’s legacy and during the chat he was asked if any sequel plans were ever considered.
He indicates they had considered various iterations, but they never did come up with an idea everyone was on board with:
“We didn’t get it to the point where we are all like, ‘Ah, that’s perfect! We’re not repeating the first movie. We’re building on it’.”
When asked about a potential remake/reboot however, he says the issues are of a whole different kind and it’s a much thornier issue:
“People have talked about it, people are still talking about it. I think we’re in a period of time when, if you’ve had something that’s extraordinarily successful, people want to see if they can mine that IP.
But again, I think our bar is, ‘Are we saying something new? Are we saying something relevant to the culture now?’ We don’t want to do something that’s just exploitative storytelling, we want to do something that feels like it has a purpose in the world.
And when we were doing it, the presidency and that position was not as politically charged as it is today. And so, I think that there are specific challenges about doing it in the contemporary climate that we would have to figure out. But believe me, people keep talking about it.”
At the time back in 1997, “Air Force One” was a solid Summer blockbuster hit – snagging $315.2 million worldwide off an $85 million budget. It also scored solid reviews and two Oscar nominations.
The comments come as Harrison Ford recently said he has no plans to retire anytime soon and will be seen in “Captain America: Brave New World” opening next year.