RETURN TO ALCATRAZ

Snake's Ahoy! Kurt Russell returns as ''Snake'' Plissken in director John Carpenter and producer Deborah Hill's sequel to their 1981 Escape From New York. This time Plissken gets dropped into a hellish future L.A. to apprehend the President's deranged daughter before she unleashes a doomsday machine. Escape From L.A. starts filming this winter.

Pen Pals: Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery team up in Simpson-Bruckheimer's thriller, The Rock, as an FBI agent and a veteran con enlisted to save a group of tourists held hostage in Alcatraz. Production begins in October.

Electromagnetism: Twin Peaks' enigmatic charmer Kyle MacLachlan resurfaces in The Trigger Effect as a man who protects his family from social anarchy when a far-reaching industrial accident destroys power and telephone lines. David Koepp (Jurassic Park's screenwriter) is currently directing his first film in L.A.

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