6 Game-Changing Original Plans You Didn't Know About The Warriors
1. Major Acting Stars Turned Down Roles, Were Cut, And Are Hidden In The Background.
The Warriors became a global hit of the cult variety, despite not containing any mainstream or established actors from the period. Further to this, it is known that a large amount of the extras were all affiliated with real-life NY-based street gangs.
Even the main cast were somewhat local or unknown, for instance, Micheal Beck had starred in an Israeli based independent film, which coincidentally starred Sigourney Weaver as the lead, and through casting her for Alien (1979), Hill had seen Beck's performance.
Patrick Kelly was selected via his performance in a Broadway musical and The Warriors was his feature film debut. Essentially, The Warriors did not rely on star power for its success, nor did it suffer because of it - it was a run-of-the-mill casting job.
Except for the fact that the film could have contained a variety of future Hollywood superstars, but for some reason, these actors turned down the film at the last minute, were cut in the edit room, or were considered and contacted, only for the producers to retract their proposed idea.
The infamous American actor, filmmaker, and radio producer Orson Welles actually recorded dialogue intended to be the film’s narration, but ultimately Paramount Studio’s decided they did not like the idea and refused to pay for it. Hill eventually included his own commentary in the director's cut released in 2005, as a homage to the original plan.
Neil Canton states that “originally there was narration to the movie [...] and we had Orson Welles to come to do the narration”, adding that he had “worked with Orson on this movie called The Other Side of The Wind” (which began filming in 1972).
Tony Danza and Robert De Niro were both contacted by casting producers to play titular characters, Vermin and Cowboy. Tony couldn't commit as he had recently been cast in Taxi (1978), whilst De Niro and Hill both ultimately agreed it would be better to use unknown actors to create the effect he was looking for.
Kevin Bacon and John Synder were both set to play two of the Dingos, and it is rumoured that a young Samuel L. Jackson is one of the gang members in the opening enclave scene.