It has been 27 years since Air Force One‘s 1997 release, and one of its writers is opening up about whether the movie needs a sequel. The movie featured an all-star cast, including Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, and more leading actors. The plot is relatively simple, as Ford’s President James Marshall desperately works to regain control of Air Force One after terrorists hijack the flight.
While the cast of Air Force One has gone on to star in numerous other movies, screenwriter Andrew W. Marlowe has been considering the possibility of developing an Air Force Two. In an interview with SYFY, he addressed the idea of a sequel or reboot movie and dismissed it outright. Though he sees the potential, he finds many faults with the idea but admits that there have been talks about a follow-up.
“We had talked about it, but there are always challenges with that [kind of] franchise. You get into the Die Hard problem of every time John McClane goes on vacation or goes anywhere, the terrorists take over. So we were very cautious. We had conversations with Beacon and all the folks involved, but we never landed on a story that we thought could do justice to what we had accomplished in the main film. We had set the bar incredibly high. Harrison as as president goes someplace, he’s on an Air Force carrier, it’s attacked, he’s in the middle of an unstable geopolitical situation. And so, there are things he can and can’t do, because you don’t want to inflame it. He’s got to navigate it and he’s the person at the heart of it. There are many variations on it and with the tuning fork, 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.” People have talked about [a potential reboot], 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.”
Should Air Force One Get A Sequel Or Reboot?
There are a few major problems that would come with developing Air Force One sequels. One is what Marlowe outright stated: It could become absurd. If every flight is constantly hijacked by terrorists, it would become increasingly bizarre that President Marshall or any other American official would fail to increase security. Over time, it could feel contrived, which would diminish the success of the original.
Another problem is that the cast and crew are unlikely to return. Harrison Ford already agreed to multiple roles in the near future, including 1923 season 2, a role in the MCU, and a spot in Shrinking season 2. After 27 years, other members of the cast also have important obligations to attend to, and they may not be willing to return for a sequel. Still, if Top Gun Maverick could bring back its stars, a sequel is a possibility, and a reboot would easily avoid both of these issues.
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Politics, however, is a much less easily dissuadable concern. In the wake of the 2001 9/11 attacks, the idea of terrorists hijacking a plane would be much more politically charged for huge swaths of the population. The Presidency has also become an extremely controversial position, often drawing disdain from both sides of the domestic political spectrum. An Air Force One sequel or reboot would need to balance those issues, which would be a major distraction. It may simply be a product of its time and should remain that way.
Air Force One
In the 1997 action thriller Air Force One, President James Marshall (Harrison Ford) is forced to defend his plane from Russian hijackers while trying to save his family and administration. It is directed by Wolfgang Petersen, with Gary Oldman playing terrorist Egor Korshunov and Glenn Close appearing as Vice President Kathryn Bennett.
