The rumbling around ''Gangs'' started even before cameras rolled. Although Scorsese had been developing the project for years, the script wasn't finished when shooting began in September 2000 at the historic Cinecittà Studios in Rome (where Federico Fellini had filmed ''La Dolce Vita''). Jay Cocks, who'd collaborated with Scorsese on ''The Age of Innocence,'' was the principal writer. A rewrite by Hossein Amini (''The Wings of the Dove'') got the green light from Weinstein, but Amini had to leave to work on Miramax's Heath Ledger adventure ''Four Feathers.'' Steven Zaillian (''Schindler's List'') was hired to do a draft. Amini returned for another polish. Next, Kenneth Lonergan shuttled back and forth to Rome to do character work while promoting ''You Can Count on Me'' in the U.S.
Scorsese insists that script changes were part of the plans. ''In the process of preparing and shooting, we kept evolving the characters,'' he says. ''We were lucky because we had the whole [set] in one place, so it wasn't a situation where if you improvised or rewrote you had to go somewhere else and build another set. We envisioned an evolutionary process.''
That process, however, did not come cheap. Two weeks into production, Weinstein says he realized that the $84 million budget wasn't going to cut it. Weinstein and Scorsese decided to use a second and third unit to shoot scenes not involving the lead actors. Scorsese would sketch out exactly what he wanted the second and third units to film and then shuttle back and forth in a golf cart.
The staggered shooting forced the famously controlling Scorsese to loosen the reins. On the day Broadbent needed to wrap his final scene to go work on ''Iris,'' for instance, Scorsese was busy improvising on a complex action sequence. ''I said, 'Jim, you're going to have to direct yourself,''' Scorsese recalls. ''I ran off to the other set to direct something else. I came back and looked at him on videotape, and said, 'Let's get one more take.' And bang, he was off.''
To keep an eye on costs, Miramax first hired producer Michael Hausman, who had overseen such period epics as ''Amadeus.'' But as production began to ramp up, Weinstein added ''Shakespeare in Love'' producer David Parfitt. ''I went out there as a consultant to help Harvey on the budget for a few weeks,'' says Parfitt, ''and I stayed for eight months.''
Given that ''Gangs'' is the priciest movie in Miramax history, Weinstein resorted to some fancy wheeling and dealing to reduce the studio's risk. After selling foreign rights to L.A.-based Initial Entertainment Group for $65 million, Miramax split the remaining $32 million costs with Touchstone, a division of Miramax parent Disney that will also share marketing expenses.
But that's not all. Miramax cochair Bob Weinstein persuaded Scorsese and DiCaprio to chip in if the film went over budget. In the end, Scorsese returned $3 million of his $6 million salary, while DiCaprio kicked in more than $3.5 million from his undisclosed paycheck. (Both will get a bigger piece of the back end if ''Gangs'' turns a profit.) ''I did it because I believe in the movie,'' Scorsese says. ''I had to make the film.'' Neither of those contributions were included in the official budget of $97 million -- nor was the $3 million Initial spent in part to pay off producer Alberto Grimaldi, who'd once worked with Scorsese on the project.
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