Exclusive: Tony Scott talks Warriors
The Top Gun director on his upcoming remake.
Tony Scott sat down with RT recently to discuss The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, released in the US on June 12th and the UK on July 24th, but of course we couldn't leave him without taking about another remake on his agenda; The Warriors. Based on a novel by Sol Yurick, the 1979 original was written and directed by Walter Hill.
"I'm not doing a straight remake," he insisted. "I love the original Warriors and I'm using the same basic story. It's really still 10 guys stuck at point B and they need to get back to point A. But I'm going to set it in Los Angeles and it's going to be a kind of study of gang culture in LA today."
The plot revolves around a gang - the titular Warriors - framed for killing a gang leader who's attempting to make peace with the area's gangs. Scott explained his switch from the original New York setting. "It's a city which is horizontal. New York is vertical, all skyscrapers, and Los Angeles is horizontal. I'm hoping to get a hundred thousand real gang-members standing on the Vincent Thomas Bridge for one shot."
Scott has been busy pursuing these gang members. "I've been meeting the various gangs as part of the research," he explains. "I never meet the gang leader, always his second-in-command. I have to do this little tap-dance and sell the film to them. I've met them all, Crips, Bloods, The 18th Street Gang, The Vietnamese and so on. The all love The Warriors. So it was, 'yeah, fuck yeah we'll be in that!'"
While there's no start date set for the project, expect announcements shortly after Scott's promotional tour for Pelham wraps up. Scott recently announced plans to produce a prequel to Alien, directed - also in 1979 - by his brother Ridley. Join us later in the week for our full interview.
Bob S. on 06-2-2009 01:19 AM
This movie's a cult classic - and it's not one that I'm averse to seeing redone with a larger budget. It's one of the most interesting interpretations of Xenophon's Anabasis (anyone else read The Ten Thousand by Michael Curtis Ford? Awesome book). The gangs in THE WARRIORS were well-crafted and memorable, and hopefully their portrayal here will be equally so, even if they're grounded in reality. I think Rockstar Games even released a computer game based on the movie.
A hundred thousand real gang members? Wow...but Tony, please, no more style over substance. Yes, 100,000 gang members will make for a highly memorable scene, but what makes the tale of Xenophon interesting (no matter how it's told) is the characters and their journey through danger.