THE RUSSO BROTHERS ARE BRINGING 70’s CULT CLASSIC THE WARRIORS TO TV

With their films CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, and the upcoming two-part AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, sibling directing duo Joe and Anthony Russo have been busy bringing some of Marvel Comics’ greatest heroes to the big screen, but not so busy that they can’t also help bring some of the coolest characters of the 1970s to the small screen.

The Russo brothers have signed a deal with Paramount TV and Hulu to develop, with writer Frank Baldwin, a television series based on Walter Hill’s 1979 action classic THE WARRIORS. One of my favorite movies.

Based on a novel by Sol Yurick, Hill’s film was set in a uniquely stylized version of New York City where the gangs looked like they had stepped out of the pages of a comic book. For example, the Baseball Furies – baseball bat-wielding goons who wore baseball uniforms and painted up their faces. The film’s story:

A battle of gigantic proportions is looming in the neon underground of New York City. The armies of the night number 100,000; they outnumber the police 5 to 1; and tonight they’re after the Warriors – a street gang blamed unfairly for a rival gang leader’s death.

In the years before his death, Tony Scott had been working on a remake of THE WARRIORS that would have taken a much more “real world” approach to the concept. He intended to move the setting to Los Angeles and cast actual gangs as the gangs in the film.

For their TV version of the idea, the Russos are said to be taking an approach that will honor the original film while adding their own brand of grit, pulp, sex, and violence.

Joe and Anthony Russo will be producing The Warriors with Mike Larocca. Lawrence Gordon, who produced the 1979 film, will serve as an executive producer.