Video · Steve McQueen's Female-Centric 'Widows' Is "His Own Version of a Gangster Film"

For his follow-up to best picture Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueenhad his choice of projects.
The auteur behind such intense male-led dramas as Hunger and Shame is making a bit of a departure with a female-led heist film, one based on the 1980s British TV series Widows that he devoured as a London teen.
But the film and TV series will diverge dramatically. McQueen’s feature, which reunites him with 12 Years producer and financier New Regency, won’t be called Widows and will be set in a modern-day American city, not London.
“Steve was interested in doing his own version of a gangster film,” New Regency president and CEO Brad Weston tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It felt fresh to him to combine a contemporary, hard-hitting, very grounded gangster movie with four strong female characters. We loved it because that’s who Steve is. He sees things differently.”