Jun. 13, 2009 | Action, Movie News, Movies | |

T. Scott coming out to play with Warriors

Those Scott Brothers are still really busy boys – despite their advancing years.

We’ve got the relentless movie-making machine that is 72-year-old Ridley Scott currently back in epic action-adventure mode with Robin Hood, starring his muse Russell Crowe.

Brother Tony, 65, meanwhile is out on the promotion trail for his new film, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington, and also talking up new projects he is playing major parts in – the Alien prequel he is to produce with Ridley, as well as not one but two movies he will helm, Unstoppable, again with Denzel, and a remake of cult hit The Warriors.

The Warriors, first released in 1979 and directed by Walter Hill, is about a small-time gang from Coney Island who get more than they bargain for when they venture into the mean streets of New York City for a kind of gang ’seminar’. They face a battle for survival after being set up as the assassins of the ‘guest speaker’, the numero uno of the biggest, baddest gang in the city.

It was one of the first movies I ever saw on the old VHS player and absolutely blew me away. As a five-year-old I probably shouldn’t have even been watching, but I had a pretty carefree upbringing when it came to restrictions on video viewing.

I just remember it being a helluva lot of fun, and actually quite cartoonish. I mean there were guys getting around on roller-skates and wearing braces who were supposed to be bad-ass, and then of course the gang decked out like clowns in full baseball kit.

Sure, it has aged a little, like some of my other favorites of the time – Escape from New York and The Beastmaster (yeah, definitely The Beastmaster) etc, with the action not quite as dynamic as you would see from something released today, but it had a tonne of character.

Also a big fan of the film is Tony Scott, who isn’t so much as planning a total remake, but more one of these ‘reimaginings’. Like what Tim Burton did to the Planet of the Apes, in that he took the action from Earth and put it on some other monkey planet.

As he told Rotten Tomatoes last week, Scott is setting his Warriors in Los Angeles. “I’m not doing a straight remake,” he said. “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.

He went on, “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.”

Ridley’s younger brother has certainly enjoyed a good run when it comes to action fare, with The Last Boyscout (1991) and True Romance (1993) under-rated gemsm while he’s also helmed Top Gun and Days of Thunder, with Tom Cruise, and Deja Vu, Man of Fire and Crimson Tide, with Denzel Washington.

He’s apparently about to collaberate with Washington for a fifth time soon, but not sure whether it’s before the Warriors or after, on Unstoppable, which could possibly be co-starring Chris Pine (Star Trek).

Again while promoting The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Scott described Unstoppable to MTV News as “Speed on steroids”. He said, “If ‘Pelham 1 2 3 will put you on the edge of your seat, this one will put you in CPR in the back of the theater.”

Washington will play a veteran engineer who hooks up with a young train conductor to stop a runaway train carrying a payload of toxic chemicals.

SOURCES:
Rotten Tomatoes
MTV News