Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Warriors (2010)

Huzzah! Another genre film remake is coming our way courtesy of director Tony Scott, the guy who is about to deliver an entirely unnecessary remake of classic 1970s crime thriller, THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE. (On a side note, do yourself a favor and rent Joseph Sargent's original 1974 film, starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, before wallowing into the remake opening June 12th.) The film I am referring to is a remake of Walter Hill's cult street gang classic THE WARRIORS (1979). Rotten Tomatoes recently sat down with Scott to discuss this upcoming project.

"I'm not doing a straight remake," Scott 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."

Scott says he plans to play up the vertical nature of how Los Angeles is laid out opposed to the horizontal nature of New York with its many skyscrapers. In the original film, the setting of tightly packed high-rises and the subway gave much of the film a closed-in look. Scott says he wants to get 100,000 real gang members standing on the Vincent Thomas Bridge for one shot, presumably to replicate the gang meeting that takes place at the beginning of the 1979 film.

Scott has been meeting with representatives of the area gangs, who so far have expressed interest in being in the film since, according to the director, they're all fans of THE WARRIORS.

Tony Scott seems to be on a mission to repackage old film and TV properties. The TOP GUN helmer has already produced a made-for-TV remake of the sci-fi classic THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN and has further plans to produce a feature-film adaptation of THE A-TEAM and an ALIEN prequel.

Kung Fu Cinema

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