13th Street - no date
The Making of GONY
This is an interesting summary of the production story of Gangs of New York:
Miramax has spent more money on Gangs Of New York than any other movie they've ever made with a $90 million that was originally less, but is rumored to have been a lot more, despite shooting in Italy rather than actually New York. Director Martin Scorsese has wanted to do this movie for the past 30 years and with the market-savvy of Harvey Weinstein and the Christmas release date, there has never been any idea about this picture other than it is Scorsese's run at finally nabbing a Best Director Oscar which he's been nominated for three times before, but never won (he's even been nominated for screenwriting and lost). It's an ambitious adaptation of a seventy-five year old book by Herbert Asbury about the wars between immigrant gangs that went down near the docks of New York leading up to the Civil War.
The story, which follows a boy - Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) - on a quest to avenge his father's death (Liam Neeson - post motorcycle crash) against a much feared gangland crimelord, Bill "The Butcher" Poole (Daniel Day-Lewis in his first role since The Boxer) weaves its way through New York history and features such prominent historical folks as Boss Tweed, played by Jim Broadbent and P.T. Barnum played by Roger Ashon-Griffiths. Though it is primarily a crime film, it is certain to be a carefully etched page out of history just as Scorsese's Age of Innocence was.
Originally, Gangs Of New York was to be an $80 million picture staring Robert De Niro in the Daniel Day-Lewis role and would mark their ninth collaboration and another serious Oscar-run for De Niro. Trouble is, the shoot got expensive and moved overseas, so De Niro dropped out citing he didn't want to spend too much time away from his kids. Willem Dafoe was next in line, but dropped out due to Spider-Man. Third string was Daniel Day-Lewis who had already said that he had basically retired from acting and hadn't been seen on screen in four years since the release of The Boxer and before that, The Crucible and 1993's The Age Of Innocence.
Then Liam Neeson looked to be out of the picture as in New York, he'd gone right off his motorcycle and shattered his pelvis after striking a deer. However, the shoot, which was originally slated to begin in late August of last year and finish in February, 2001 has a shift in schedule, weeks were added, and it looked to still happen.
Finally, Pete Postlewaite who no one seems to be sure who he was playing, dropped out of the picture as he didn't want to be away from his family for that long, either. After months of casting-roulette, the movie finally began its shoot on September 18, 2000 in Italy after a few delays with such names as Cameron Diaz, Brendan Gleeson, John C. Reilly and Henry Thomas rounding out the cast as well as young Devon Murray who will play Seamus in Harry Potter this year, but plays the young Amsterdam Vallon in Gangs Of New York.
The shoot has been rumored to be nightmarish with words like "perfectionist" thrown diplomatically at Scorsese (don't mess with a genius, kids). Weeks were added to the schedule and the budget is now rumored to be slightly over $100 million. The tabloids latched onto the story of a partying-hard DiCaprio who found himself having to apologize to every member of the crew by Scorsese for showing up late and having to delay the day's start as he was out drunk late the night before with girlfriend Gisele. Some have said that the production design by Italian filmmaking legend and Scorsese-collaborator Dante Ferretti might've contributed to the cost-overrun, but that is unlikely from such an experienced fellow who has worked in Italy as well as the states and knows what he's doing.
More problems went down as the schedule extensions kept Leo from other parts. He was signed on to do Catch Me If You Can with The Mexican-helmer Gore Verbinski who now is saying he wants to do Project 3 with Julia Roberts as his next project. There was also a bio-pic to be directed by Randall Wallace to star DiCaprio, but that looks off as well. Finally, in early February, the shoot had to be shut done when a runaway carriage roared down a street and injured three people. No one was killed, but apparently some of the stars were so distraught - including Diaz - that they couldn't work as it had been a difficult scene they were on to begin with.
Miramax still wanted their gangster epic for Christmas, but it looked like it might never get finished.
Gangs Of New York wrapped on April 12th, though the wrap party was on March 30th for the cast who left while Scorsese shot some final second unit riot scenes (from the Civil War draft riots) himself. There were rumored to be around 19,000 extras involved in this movie and though most directors would've left that to a second unit, Scorsese handled it personally. Harvey Weinstein gave a fun quote to Army Archerd as he headed over to see Scorsese on Good Friday when he said, "on Saturday, we go to the synagogue to pray we have a hit." No kidding.
The movie isn't really finished, however, so don't believe fake test screening reviews. Scorsese has bundled the thing up to ILM and they are now doing digital inserts for the rest of the city (hope they look more real than Gladiator). Miramax is getting ballsy now and has set a December 21, 2001 opening date for the movie which will fly up against both The Fellowship Of The Ring and The Majestic (ouch!). One week later, Ocean's 11 hits (double-ouch). Do they know what they're doing? Possibly, but it can't compete against Lord Of The Rings at the box office, so they're likely just hoping to take some serious notes with the awards leading up to it. A Christmas-release, however, is because the movie cost $90 million and that's not even counting the insane amounts of money Miramax will spend on the marketing campaign. This is a big gamble for Miramax and, naturally, for Scorsese. For a man whose best films concern the seedier side of mankind and organized crime, but also someone who is no stranger to period pieces, this is one of his biggest films ever in scope, but also one of his most risky. Of course, no matter what it is, it will be interesting as hell to see.
Thanks to Gabi !
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