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Getting 'Gangster' made

Think making a movie is easy? Check out the circuitous route

Los Angeles Daily News

Published November 2, 2007 at midnight

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• Winter 2000: Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment buy the rights to The Return of Superfly, a New York magazine story about 1970s Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas.

• Summer 2001: Steven Zaillian is hired to write the screenplay. Zaillian spends more than 18 months exhaustively researching Lucas' story. He's asked to direct but declines, saying he lacked "the hot visual flair" needed to tell the story.

• Fall 2003: Universal and Imagine talk to Brian De Palma about directing Gangster. Terms are never reached.

• March 2004: Training Day director Antoine Fuqua is brought in to helm Gangster. Also hired: Fuqua's Training Day lead Denzel Washington, who will play Lucas.

• May 2004: Benicio del Toro is hired to play Richie Roberts, the detective who helped bring down Lucas' drug organization.

• Summer 2004: Fuqua brings in script doctors to rework Zaillian's screenplay, playing up the movie's "hard-core gangster" elements.

• Oct. 3, 2004: Director Antoine Fuqua leaves Gangster. Universal blames "creative differences." The main issue: Studio executives feared that the $80 million budget would balloon well north of $100 million.

• Oct. 6, 2004: Universal shuts down production of American Gangster. Washington pockets his $20 million fee. Del Toro gets paid $5 million. All told, Universal pays $30 million in preproduction costs with nothing to show for it.

• March 2005: Universal and Imagine hire Hotel Rwanda writer-director Terry George to revamp Gangster so it can be made for a $50 million price tag.

• May 2005: George talks to his Hotel Rwanda leading man, Don Cheadle, about playing drug kingpin Frank Lucas in Gangster.

• September 2005: Imagine pulls the plug on the George version of Gangster.

• Fall 2005: Ridley Scott approaches Zaillian on a project. Zaillian declines, asks Scott if he'd like to take a look at his original American Gangster screenplay.

• November 2005: Scott signs on to direct American Gangster. Washington returns to the project. Russell Crowe, will play Roberts.

• July 2006: American Gangster begins filming in Queens. Its budget: $100 million.