Gangs of New York writer lands TV series about New Orleans underworld

Herbert Asbury’s Gangs of New York served as major source material for Martin Scorsese’s film of the same name in 2002, and now another of the author-journalist’s books, The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld, is going to become a TV series.

Vermillion and Rubicon are producing, with the companies currently looking at directors, writers and cast.

“Being from New Orleans, we were naturally drawn to the material that showcases an incredible time in history spanning pirates and riverboat gambling to voodoo and politics,” Vermilion president Todd Thompson said. “We are excited to further our great relationship with Rubicon.”

Rubicon’s Nathan Grubbs added: “The French Quarter has been a passion project of mine for many years, and I am extremely proud to have found the perfect partners in fellow New Orleanians the Thompsons and Vermilion to bring to light the incredibly unique story that is the birth of New Orleans.”

French Quarter charts New Orleans’ historic criminal underbelly, recounting stories from ‘the murderous exploits of Mary Jane "Bricktop" Jackson and Bridget Fury, two prostitutes who became famous after murdering a number of their associates, to the faux-revolutionary "filibusters" who, backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars of public support—though without official governmental approval—undertook military missions to take over the bordering Spanish regions in Texas’.