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Gangs of New York (2002)
Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Directed by Martin Scorsese · Shot by Michael Ballhaus · Cut by Thelma Schoonmaker · Music by Howard Shore · Ratio 2.35:1 · 168 min
How it was made
- Production designer Dante Ferretti built over a mile of recreated 1860s Lower Manhattan at Rome's Cinecittà Studios, including a five-block Five Points slum and two full-size sailing ships on a mock East River waterfront.
- Ferretti based the Five Points set directly on George Catlin's 1827 painting of the neighbourhood.
- Scorsese acquired the screen rights to Herbert Asbury's source book in 1979, but the production took twenty years to reach a shoot because almost nothing in New York still resembled its nineteenth-century appearance.
- The screenplay went through nine revised drafts with co-writer Jay Cocks before Scorsese, under pressure from producer Harvey Weinstein, fired Cocks and brought in Hossein Amini to write the final two drafts, uncredited.
- Costs ran 25 percent over the original budget, pushing the production past $100 million.
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Behind the scenes
Elsewhere
More by Martin Scorsese
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