It’s a bad time to be a fan of 80s action movies. First we had the news that McG might be getting his hands on the Terminator franchise, now comes the rumor that X-Men destroyer Brett Ratner might get his crummy mitts on the Escape from New York remake. Get ready for all your worst remake fears to be realized.

Last month it was announced that Len Wiseman, director of Live Free or Die Hard would be helming the Escape remake, but now AICN claims he’s being dropped from the project and replaced by Ratner. They admit that their source is an untested one and could therefore be making the whole thing up, so there’s at least some hope that this news is nothing but vapor. Ratner has an uncanny ability to ruin really good franchises, even if their his own. Hey, I enjoyed Rush Hour and even had fun with Rush Hour 2. But did you see Rush Hour 3? Ratner has made Jackie Chan’s humiliation complete.

At his very best Ratner is an extremely mediocre and lately, he’s been making movies even though he’s much too busy to do more than simply point is camera at whatever happens to be in front of him and say “go”. Brett Ratner isn’t just untalented, I get the feeling that he doesn’t care. The guy has a reputation as a monster partier, and his sets are usually described as “wild fun”. He just sort of does whatever. If there’s a nightmare scenario for who could end up remaking Escape from New York this is it, and you have only yourself to blame for supporting his movies. X-Men: The Last Stand made a mint, and now Hollywood is convinced that Ratner is a man. We’re doomed.