‘Narcos’ Creator Working on ‘Peaky Blinders’ Style Series on Irish Gangs in NY for MGM+

Scott Roxborough
·1 min read
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The next project from Narcos creator Chris Brancato may be a Peaky Blinders-esque period drama series about Irish gangs in New York.

Brancanto, speaking at the TV festival Series Mania in Lille, France on Wednesday, said he was developing the period crime series for MGM+.

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Brancanto made the announcement in the final few minutes of his talk at Series Mania, which was focused on his new MGM+ show Hotel Cocaine, one of the highlighted series in the competition lineup at the French TV fest. He declined to give many details about his new project, except to note the show’s working title — The Westies — and that the series will follow the “fearsome Irish gangs” in New York in the late 19th century.

Martin Scorsese famously depicted the same era in his 2002 multi-Oscar nominated Gangs of New York, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis. The film follows the rise of Irish gangs, fueled by mass immigration in the late 19th century and their power struggles with other criminal groups in the area around the Five Points neighborhood of lower Manhattan.

Brancanto said he was also planning a second season of Hotel Cocaine, which follows a Cuban exile who is general manager of a hotel in Miami in the late 1970s and early 80s, ground zero for the cocaine epidemic. The crime thriller features The Shield star Michael Chiklis.

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