Con Air Director Wants to Bring Nicolas Cage Back for Sequel in Space

“I would do it if it was completely turned on its head,” West said then. “Con Air in space for example, a studio version where they’re all robots or the convicts are reanimated as super-convicts, or where the good guys are bad guys and the bad guys are good guys. Something shocking. If it was clever writing it could work.”

West also previously made no secret of his desire to reunite the cast, telling Mandatory in 2011: “It’d be great. It’s a matter of getting everybody together.”  And as it turns out, West is more game for taking Con Air into space now than he was when he first made those tongue-in-cheek remarks.

In a recent chat with Den of Geek, the director said he originally pitched the idea as “a joke” and never intended to revisit the story of Cage’s Cameron Poe. But things change.

“After I said it, I was probably sent 10 scripts all set either on a plane or with a gang of criminals,” West says now.  “The last thing I wanted to do at that time was revisit it.” However, over the years, his view on making a sequel has shifted, with West now envisioning the potential for a plot based around commercial space travel.

“What’s really interesting that has happened since I made that remark, is the emergence of this whole private space travel industry,” says West. “We’ve got people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson setting up these companies to privatize space. That makes it [the idea of a sequel] more intriguing because it wouldn’t just be your standard space movie. It could be all to do with very up to the minute politics, and how big business is taking over from what governments used to do.”

To his way of thinking, Con Air 2 could work as a high concept take on the familiar plane hostage movie, with a band of criminals taking control of a commercial space flight. Spinning out from West’s outline, the idea of big business replacing what governments do could easily feed into a plotline that sees convicts enlisted by private enterprises to work onboard the flight, with catastrophic results. In any case, he sees the exciting potential.