Martin Scorsese has been officially appointed the director of a new TV series based on Herbert Ashbury’s 1927 novel Gangs of New York. Miramax, the studio behind the new series, announced the series was in development earlier today, with Scorsese appointed as director after he also directed the 2002 film adaptation of Gangs of New York.
Published in 1927 by Garden City Publishing Company, Herbert Asbury’s The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the New York Underworld is a nonfiction novel that brings audiences through the rise and fall of gangs in the brothels, gambling dens, and saloons of 19th century New York before the takeover of Italian-American organized crime during the Prohibition of the 1920s.
Gangs of New York was first adapted to the screen in the form of a 2002 feature film starring Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) as William “Bill the Butcher” Cutting, a gangster based on the real-life figure of William Poole. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas, and Liam Neeson also starred as fellow gangsters Amsterdam Vallon, William “Boss” Tweed, Happy Jack Mulraney, Johnny Sirocco, and “Priest” Vallon. The film focused on a war between New York’s Irish Catholics and its Protestant population, a battle that erupted into violence in the 1860s, coinciding with Civil War drafts of the time.
Miramax and Martin Scorsese to Produce ‘Gangs of New York’ Series
Miramax, which acquired the rights to Gangs of New York in 1999, will once again be teaming up with Martin Scorsese to produce a TV drama series based on Gangs of New York. Deadline reports that writer and playwright Brett Leonard, who wrote Hollywood Rooftop (2021) and Breathing Underwater (2020), has stepped on board the project as the show scriptwriter, but other details regarding the show’s plot and casting and currently being kept secret.
While announcing the new Gangs of New York series, Scorsese told Deadline the following:
Miramax’s Gangs of New York will be executive produced by Scorsese along with his manager Chris Donnelly and Brett Leonard’s manager Rick Yorn. A production timeline is unclear, but the series will reportedly be pitched to buyers later this month. More details will likely become available as the series enters development.
