How Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn updated a British TV show to create the urgent and resonant crime thriller 'Widows'

Steve McQueen knew "Widows" would be his next film nearly a decade ago - three years before his third feature, "12 Years a Slave," nabbed the best picture Oscar in 2014. But the idea has been with the now-49-year-old even longer than that.

"Thirty-five years ago I saw the TV show, and it just stuck with me," he said of the inspiration for "Widows," which 20th Century Fox will release nationwide on Friday. "I immediately identified with these women."

Perhaps that's because, as a child, "you're very much aware of your surroundings and you carry things around with you," he said. And when you're growing up black, "you get criticized much, much earlier so that you're always asking