len wiseman was attached to direct but he dropped out of the project rumors then circulated that brett ratner would helm the film as ratner did not formally commit to the project the identity of the director became unclear the studio brought jonathan mostow in to rewrite with an option to direct in addition gerard butler bowed out of his role claiming "creative differences" allan loeb wrote a script for the new line cinema project breck eisner was then announced as the director of the remake which was said to have scrapped the idea of a post-apocalyptic new york like the original but rather would feature a new york that had been built after the bomb