One of these days I need to make good on my threat to create a Remakes category here. The better to make sure I'm not repeating myself every time Hollywood eats its own young:
His new film Domino may open on Friday but when we got the chance to chat with director Tony Scott recently, we wanted to probe him about another movie he's got in the pipeline – his remake of classic '70s street gang flick The Warriors.
Many consider Walter Hill's 1979 film, in which a New York posse must try and get home to Coney Island alive after being framed from the murder of a gang leader, to be untouchable. But fans could be in for a surprise because Scott's impending epic is moving the action to the West coast.
"I see it as Kingdom Of Heaven meets The Warriors because with these gangs, instead of having twenty or thirty guys, I'm going to have three thousand, five thousand guys in the LA river beds and it's going to look like LA during the riots," Tony told us explaining "I love the original movie, that's why I'm in doing this but I'm not going to copy the original".
Then why bother to call it The Warriors at all? If you want to make another Los Angeles gang movie that ignores all the elements of Sol Yurick's novel then why not just call it Tony Scott's Anabasis: Straight Bangin' and be done with it? There's no need to associate this upcoming film - sure to be chock full of guest rappers, impressive CG pyrotechnics, and nauseating camera trickery - with the 1979 Walter Hill movie. None.
The original Warriors was deliberately otherworldly, existing in a New York City where gang members could dress like Louisville slugger-wielding harlequins or Deney Terrio and get away with it. One of the creepiest parts for me (aside from the aforementioned Baseball Furies and the horror from beyond the grave that is Deborah Van Valkenburgh) was the concept of a city wholly deserted except for the gangs. Who knows, that may actually have been how New York City was in the late '70s, but it made the original that much more effective.
More details from a different website:
"The opening of The Warriors now begins on the Long Beach Bridge, and it's going to look like the L.A. marathon," Scott said of the script, which relocates the story of the titular gang attempting to get home to its turf after being mistakenly accused of murdering a rival gang leader. "You'll still get the same story, but we're reconstructing the family, reconstructing the characters, and I'm doing it in L.A. The original was in New York and everything went upwards; L.A. goes [length-wise]."
I have no idea what the hell that means. Coney Island is at a higher elevation than the rest of NYC?
Scott revealed that he intends to do away with such warring factions as the Baseball Furies (a bat-wielding group of thugs dressed in makeup and MLB-worthy uniforms), the Punks (chain-wielders in hillbilly overalls) and the Hi Hats (bad-ass mimes wearing top hats). The decision, which will no doubt stir up controversy among die-hard fans currently snatching up newly released "Warriors" action figures at mall stores nationwide, is largely due to the director's recent meetings with actual L.A. gang members, whom he employed onscreen in "Domino" and intends to use again for "Warriors."
"I sat with all the gang members and they said, 'If you can get this movie on, we'll do a treaty between all the warriors, all the different gangs,' " Scott said proudly. "It's very different from what the original is like. I love the original, but this is a very different tone and a very different feel."
[...]
"Everything else that we're doing, what I'm bringing to it, it's a different movie," he added, saying that authentic tattoo-sporting gangbangers will replace fictional organizations like the Savage Huns and the pimpish Boppers. "It will be the Bloods, the Crips, the Vietnamese, the 18th Street [Gang], all the boys."
I think I liked this movie better when it was called Judgment Night, or Colors*, or The Substitute 2: School's Out.
C'mon Tony, you can always use my idea:
The Nixons - the whitest gang in southern California - suffer horrible beatings at the hands of rival L.A. outfits until their leader remembers he can simply borrow the keys to his parents' Lincoln Navigator and cruise back to Yorba Linda in style.
Starring Seann William Scott, Adam Brody, Hillary Duff, and Ja Rule. You know you want to.
* Not true, I actually hated Colors.
Hey, THE WARRIORS video game looks pretty kick-ass....Rockstar games is making it too!
Having been to LA a couple times and NYC frequently, I can say you cannot replace one with the other. NYC is a pedestrian and subway society. LA is a car society. Why do you think there are so many (unneccesary) shots in valley porn of the main character driving? It's a car place. Mostly because things are so far apart.
NYC is laid out such that one could walk from, say, Battery Park to Coney Island in a night. It would be a hike to be sure, but you could do it.
The exposure that comes from either walking or riding mass transit gives the characters and viewers that real creepy vulnerability feeling that you just don't get in a car. Except when Pete's driving.
Nope. Flat out this transplant just doesn't work.
And even if you left it NYC, you couldn't touch the original. I wish they would leave it alone.