Shuvrajit Das Biswas
‘Air Force One’ is reportedly getting a sequel which is currently in the nascent stages of development. It is under production at Sony which also released the original picture, according to reports from a critic.However, the reports state, “It is unknown if Wolfgang Petersen and Harrison Ford will reprise their roles or if this will be a new story with new characters set in the same universe”. This will be one of the many 90s movies that are getting reboots or sequels in order to cater to a growing wave of audience nostalgia for what is the last decade of semi-analog entertainment.
Taking a trip down memory lane, 1997 was a great year for films, and the world we lived in was rather different. This year saw the release of films like ‘Titanic‘, ‘Hercules’, ‘Men in Black’, ‘Starship Troopers’ and ‘Batman and Robin‘, all of which had large sections of the audience excited. It was in this year that ‘Air Force One’ starring Harrison Ford, as President James Marshall, came out and became the kind of action movie that audiences love to see whenever it comes on the television. To jog your memory about the plot of the film, Air Force One, the official plane carrying the President of the United States is hijacked by a group of communist radicals, led by a character played by Gary Oldman, posing as press members. They attempt to secure the release of one General Ivak Radek, the dictator of Kazakhstan, who had been captured by a team of American and Russian Special Forces operatives. With the US President and his family on board, the Vice President, played by Glenn Close attempts to negotiate with the terrorists from Washington DC. However, the terrorists stand their ground and thwart the US attempts to safely land the plane, including breaching the cockpit and preventing an emergency landing at a German air force base. The President, despite having a chance to escape from the flight, refuses and this veteran of the Vietnam War and Medal of Honor recipient decides to stay back and fight the terrorists to try and rescue all the hostages, in a tactical and lethal game of cat and mouse. All of this ends in a climactic fight sequence with the president’s life on the line as he utters the words, ‘Get off my plane’, that has now become a part of popular culture. Despite the classic Hollywood action formula, one would not have expected the film directed by Wolfgang Petersen, which was only a moderate success upon release, to be getting a sequel. Now, it appears as though Ford might get another chance to demand aggressors that they deboard his plane at once or be prepared to encounter force as an immediate result.
However, as things stand, a sequel seems to be on the way, but we have to see if Petersen returns to direct with Ford coming back as the President of the United States of America. It is entirely likely that the sequel might go with a different storyline, featuring a vastly different president. For now, of course, the film is only in the early stages and all reports at this point remain unconfirmed. However, we will be sure to keep this section updated as and when there is more news about the ‘Air Force One’ sequel.
