director walter hill on the warriors

Hill: I had a very simple thing at the beginning of the movie which [Paramount] wouldn’t let me do which was a legend that said, “Some time in the future.” The great minds at the studio thought that was too much like Star Wars. I thought the movie was close to being incomprehensible without that because it always seemed to me to be a science fiction movie.
The FADER Magazine - New York Mythology

Hill also notes being influenced by his love of American comic books in structuring The Warriors. Between science fiction, and comic books, I think I am happy with the way that it came out more than what Hill proposed. It is easier to think of The Warriors as taking place in some parallel New York than it is to deal with what would have been perceived as half-assed post-apocalyptic vision.

I am unclear on how much of The Warriors meme-boom is due to marketing efforts on Rockstar/Take 2 Games’ part, how much is synergy between the two studio and Take 2 to celebrate the Extra Super Special Edition of the movie on DVD, and how much is coincidence. As someone recently wrote, “there are no coincidences, only marketing tie-ins.” (thanks El Otro Miguel)