Martin Scorsese will executive produce and direct the first two episodes of a new Gangs of New York TV series, Deadline reports.
The new show won’t be an adaptation of Scorsese’s 2002 crime drama Gangs of New York, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz. Instead, he and writer Brett Leonard are returning to the source material, looking at new characters and storylines from Herbert Asbury’s 1927 non-fiction book, The Gangs of New York.
Asbury’s history covers several decades of organized crime, beginning in the second half of the 1800s and continuing through prohibition. Scorsese’s film was set in 1862, and HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, which he directed and executive produced, was set in the 1920s, so perhaps this newest dive into alternative income streams will come from some point in between.
Reportedly, Leonard’s script was developed internally at Miramax TV, and Scorsese came on board after reading it. The acclaimed film director had previously been attached to a different series adaptation of The Gangs of New York circa 2013, but that show never came to fruition.
On October 12th at the New York Film Festival, Scorsese premiered Personality Crisis: One Night Only, his new documentary about New York Dolls frontman David Johansen. Speaking to the crowd, he said, “Cinema is devalued, demeaned, belittled from all sides.”
His next drama Killers of the Flower Moon is set to premiere in 2023, and afterwards he’ll be directing Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wager.
