starred Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson and John C. Reilly.
Gangs of New York indeed occupies a special place in Scorsese’s filmography as an exploration of his favorite city during a fascinating and little-understood time in its history. At other points, Scorsese has depicted a more contemporary New York in classic films like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, After Hours and Bringing Out the Dead. His last New York film was of course 2013’s Wolf of Wall Street, starring frequent Scorsese collaborator DiCaprio in a story charting the rise and fall of a high-powered stockbroker.
Now after nearly a decade of working on non-New York projects, Scorsese is ready to return the city in an exciting way. As reported by Deadline, the director is teaming up with Miramax and playwright/TV writer Brett Leonard for a small-screen version of Gangs of New York. The show doesn’t yet have a home, but Scorsese is set to direct the first two episodes himself. Though the show is based on the same book as the Gangs of New York movie, it’s expected to deal with different characters than the ones played by Day-Lewis, DiCaprio and their cast mates on the big screen. This is a different project than the Gangs of New York TV show Scorsese was reported to be developing back in 2013.
Could Gangs of New York TV Show Be Better Than the Movie?
Despite Scorsese’s direction and a cast featuring acting heavyweights like Day-Lewis, DiCaprio, Diaz and Neeson, Gangs of New York is not considered one of the best Scorsese films. Indeed, the movie today carries a 72% Rotten Tomatoes score, which is not bad for a regular movie but is surely low for a director as acclaimed as Scorsese. Critics argue that though the film did a great job recreating the feel of old New York, its story arguably was not as compelling as it could have been. Now Scorsese gets to dive back into the world of Gangs of New York and take another try at telling a more satisfying tale. Unrestricted by the need to compress everything into a feature film length, the director will have the opportunity this time to really expand the scope of that story, and delve into more nooks and crannies of the world described by the original book. And that world surely is compelling enough to warrant the TV series treatment.
Though it will certainly be an advantage having more hours to work with, one thing Scorsese won’t have this time around is Day-Lewis, who in Gangs of New York the movie gave one of the great villain performances of all-time as Bill The Butcher. Coming up with as great a villain for the TV show Gangs of New York may be a challenge, but Scorsese should have no problem finding strong actors to fill out his new cast, as everyone in Hollywood will be lining up for their chance to travel back to 19th Century New York with the legendary director. There’s indeed plenty of reason to be excited about this unexpected but welcome Scorsese revisit.
Source: Deadline