what's weird is that John Carpenter has had so many of his films remade by now. He wasn't ever that prolific, and a significant portion of his own career were remakes already (Escape from LA is more remake than sequel, Ghosts of Mars = Assualt on Precinct 13, which also equals Rio Bravo, Village of the Damned, The Thing).
But with a single exception (Zombie's first Halloween remake) none of them have been all that financially successful, or even good, and its easy to forget, but Carpenter himself wasn't actually that successful in Hollywood. Aside from Halloween (and maybe Escape from New York) he never had an out-and-out runaway hit, he made a shitload of great movies, but he never had more than modest commercial success after (Big Trouble in Little China was actually a pretty sizable bomb).
So yeah, I understand some big studio chieftain wanting to plumb their vaults and remake something with a high name recognition and attach a big star to it. But with John Carpenter films its already been done, like several times already and it still hasn't really paid off. Also, the central joke of the hero who keeps buffoon-ing his way into trouble while his more competent sidekick mops shit up doesn't seem like a natural fit to a guy who could credibly beat most of humanity as well as a significant number of mythical beasts (I'll take The Rock over The Minotaur anyday).