With his 1996 sci-fi action film Escape from L.A., the Big Trouble in Little China director helped prove there was a viable market for remakes, and established their potential appeal to the ordinary theatergoer. Though technically a sequel to Carpenter’s 1981 film Escape from New York, Escape from L.A. follows the same premise as its predecessor. “[Hawks] made the same movie structurally, but changed the details,” Carpenter told Total Film in 1997. As he said in a 2015 interview with Creative Screenwriting, “Escape from L.A. is better than the first movie. Paramount PicturesIt’s up to individual viewers whether Escape from L.A. succeeds and whether it supersedes Escape from New York.