The Warriors, the cult-classic film about street gangs roving across New York City in the late 1970s, is being adapted into a television series for Hulu, reports Deadline.
The project is headlined by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, better known as the Russo brothers, who are currently in the midst of a five-year stretch directing films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Russo brothers helmed the last two Captain America movies, and are slated to direct the next two Avengers films.
Their adaptation of The Warriors will take them back to the world of television, which brought them to prominence in the early 2000s. Joe Russo and Anthony Russo each directed numerous episodes of Arrested Development and Community, and the duo won an Emmy for the Arrested Development pilot.
The Warriors, directed by Walter Hill, premiered in February 1979. In the film, the titular street gang is framed for the murder of a powerful gang's leader. After the aggrieved crew puts out a hit on The Warriors, they must make it from Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx back to their home in Brooklyn's Coney Island — with 20 other gangs hot on their trail. The movie was based on Sol Yurick's 1965 novel of the same name, which itself was inspired by the ancient Greek classic Anabasis by Xenophon.
The film proved controversial in its day. Paramount Pictures pulled print ads for a short period following The Warriors' release amid what the New York Times called "sporadic acts of violence and vandalism" in theaters showing the film. That included three deaths of teenagers, two stabbings and one shooting, in Boston and Southern California.
Deadline reports that Hulu's Warriors series will be an hourlong drama produced by Paramount Television, and writes that the Russo brothers' adaptation will "honor the original film while adding its own unique brand of grit, pulp, sex and violence." It's a strange coincidence, but today also happened to be the day Rockstar Games released a version of The Warriors — the company's 2005 brawler based on the movie — that is playable on PlayStation 4.