Since bursting onto the scene with his Hobo with a Shotgun trailer and becoming one of modern horror’s household names with the feature length version, Jason Eisener has gotten his fingers into any number of pies within the genre. Alongside directing segments in The ABCs of Death and V/H/S/2, the Canadian filmmaker executive produced 2015’s Turbo Kid (in which he appeared as The Cook), edited Southbound the same year, and is currently acting as second unit director on Adam Wingard’s Death Note for Netflix.
Having not directed a feature since Hobo in 2011, Eisener’s break from the director’s chair will be ended with a feature length adaptation of Robert Huszar and Ken Landgraf’s cult comic New York City Outlaws.
The film, which “…concerns a group of vigilantes who join forces to rescue NYC from total anarchy during a prolonged police strike,” will be written by Bryan Connelly and Zack Carlson, who worked together on a segment of The ABCs of Death 2. It is to be produced by Rhombus Media, who most recently put out Into the Forest, starring Ellen Page, and whose previous credits include Brandon Cronenberg’s 2012 film Antiviral.
New York City Outlaws seems a perfect vehicle for Eisener to revisit the grindhouse feel of Hobo, should he choose to go down that route, evoking as it does films such as Bronx Warriors, Streets of Fire and of course, The Warriors. It will also see him revisit the vigilante theme of his Rutger Hauer-starring breakthrough.
Words: Kevan Farrow (@KevanX)