The Renegades

The Renegades
Ad for the 1982 TV movie
Genre	Crime drama
Created by	Executive Producers Lawerence Gordon Charles Gordon Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
Written by	Steven E. de Souza Rick Husky
Starring	Patrick Swayze Kurtwood Smith James Luisi
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	Pilot (2 hours) 6 episodes (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Production company(s)	Lawrence Gordon Productions Paramount Television
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	March 4 (1983-03-04) – April 8, 1983 (1983-04-08)

The Renegades is an American mystery crime drama series about a street gang that becomes a special police undercover unit in order to avoid jail time. The show starred Patrick Swayze as "Bandit", the leader of the gang.

The two-hour television movie backdoor pilot for this series aired on August 11, 1982.

After the success of the movie The Warriors, Hollywood looked to take the youth gang concept and market it to TV. In 1981, Swayze did a TV show, Return of the Rebels, about an aging motorcycle gang who get together to help a friend who owns a popular campground that is being threatened by a band of arrogant groupies. However, the show didn't catch on and was quickly canceled.

Brother team Lawrence and Charles Gordon tried to market Swayze's rebel look, combine the gang concept with a police angle and came up with The Renegades. Roger Spottiswoode directed the TV movie pilot that first broadcast on August 11, 1982 and a six-episode series was later broadcast in 1983. It too didn't do well and due to weak ratings ABC pulled the show.

Director Roger Spottiswoode, screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, and producers Lawrence and Charles Gordon went on to make the film 48 Hrs. Several years later, the Gordon brothers and de Souza created the Die Hard franchise. Lawrence served as President of 20th Century Fox from 1984 to 1986. The brothers then formed Largo Entertainment.