Rocker-turned-director Rob Zombie decided to make a sports movie about a Philadelphia hockey team after watching Brad Pitt's Oscar-nominated turn in baseball film Moneyball.

Zombie has directed numerous horror films over the years, including The Devil's Rejects and two Halloween remakes, but he has moved away from the genre to work on Broad Street Bullies, a movie about the Philadephia Flyers set in the 1970s.

The Dragula hitmaker now admits he picked the project after seeing Pitt's acclaimed 2011 film about the Oakland Athletics baseball team.

He tells U.S. sports TV network ESPN, "I watched Moneyball and I said, 'I got to do this Broad Street Bullies movie'... It will be a period piece. Philadelphia was a terrible place in those days. It was also the time of Watergate and the gas shortage and Patty Hearst. It was social upheaval at the time."

Zombie insists there will still be an element of horror in the film because the story is strewn with violence as the team earned its notorious nickname during the bloody 1974/75 season.

He adds, "Maybe unintentionally (there will be an element of horror). It will be the true story. It will be gory."