On Sunday, October 12, 2025, Forbidden Planet in New York City hosts a book signing and release party for authors Michael Gingold and Chris Poggiali’s Armies of the Night: The Warriors and its Legacy from 5-7 PM. The 1984 Publishing title examines the legendary New York City gang thriller The Warriors.

The Warriors opened to scathing reviews, big box office, and major controversy. Walter Hill’s stylized tale of gang warfare wasn’t just another action movie – the film rewrote the rules of the genre. Vilified and celebrated in equal measure, it rose above its notoriety to become a cult phenomenon. Today, The Warriors stands as an influential classic, spawning cross-media spinoffs and offering a vivid snapshot of late-1970s New York City.

The history of The Warriors is a complex, sometimes tumultuous one. Armies of the Night: The Warriors and Its Legacy tracks the movie’s long journey, beginning with its origins as a groundbreaking Sol Yurick novel, revealing the many changes it underwent from book to script to screen, recounting a turbulent production involving real gang encounters and a lead actor dropped mid-shoot, through to a detailed chronicle of the controversy The Warriors sparked. How did the film overcome the kind of obstacles only an all-nights NYC shoot could throw in its path? And how did a movie that does not actually contain much graphic violence ignite such a firestorm of outrage?

Authors Michael Gingold (Fangoria, Ad Nauseam) and Chris Poggiali (These Fists Break Bricks, Temple of Schlock) answer those questions and many more via exclusive interviews with cast and crew, a wealth of vintage reportage and dozens of photos and promotional images. It’s a story as unique and dramatic as The Warriors itself.

Directed by Walter Hill from a screenplay he co-wrote with David Shaber, The Warriors centers on a titular street gang that must fight its way from the Bronx back to their home turf at Coney Island in Brooklyn, after their members are falsely accused of assassinating a respected gang leader named Cyrus, who had been attempting to unite all New York City street gangs under a single banner. The film stars Michael Beck, James Remar, Dorsey Wright, Brian Tyler, David Harris, Tom McKitterick, Marcelino Sánchez, Terry Michos, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Roger Hill, David Patrick Kelly, Lynne Thigpen, Ginny Ortiz, Mercedes Ruehl and Thomas G. Waites. The film also included a number of interesting walk-on appearances, including comic book legend Larry Hama as a Mongol gang member and actor/filmmaker Robert Townsend as a Baseball Fury.

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