How Tom Cruise helped save Martin Scorsese's epic

Martin Scorsese can be respected as one of our greatest filmmakersbut he has often had to fight tooth and nail to bring his visions to the big screen. It has a lot to do with the box office. Yes, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, and Goodfellas are considered masterpieces, but they weren't box office hits. That's why when he decided to create his blockbuster opus “Gangs of New York” after receiving consecutive Academy Awards, almost every studio in the city refused to realize his dream.

It wasn't like he was pitching the project to the film industry. Alberto Grimaldi, the famous Italian producer of classics by Federico Fellini, Sergio Leone and Bernardo Bertolucci, had released an advertisement back in 1977 announcing the making of the film. But when the new Hollywood revolution died with Bank-Breaking Failure in Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate (a great movie regardless of how much money it lost), there just wasn't much enthusiasm for Gangs of New York.

That changed briefly in the early 1990s, when Universal considered greenlighting the project with a $30 million budget, but it never got past the starting line and was eventually pawned off by Disney, which, under family-friendly studio head Joe Roth, didn't. touch the particularly violent material. Finally, in 1999, Miramax, fresh off a Best Picture Oscar win for Saving Private Ryan with Shakespeare in Love, partially believed it could get the Scorsese that had been denied it for decades. .

Miramax head Harvey Weinstein raised enough funding to ensure that Scorsese could build his circa-1860s sets using the legendary Italian film studio Cinecittà. But at some point he started saying no to some of Scorsese's set-building requests. When Scorsese needed more and couldn't get it from his financiers, he turned to one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.

It was Harvey Weinstein's idea to fly Tom Cruise, who was promoting the horror film The Others, which he had produced for Miramax, to Rome to visit his The Color of Money director on the set of the film. trying to create more than 20 years. It was a surprise to please the Italian-American maestro, but when he saw Cruz, he began to complain. Scorsese and producer Dante Ferretti wanted to build a church with a full interior that would allow the director to create a 360-degree pan. Weinstein was against it, but according to Scorsese, it was essential. Cruz was moved by the director's request.

In an Entertainment Weekly article of the making of the film, Scorsese said, “Harve was worried about how much the interior of the church would cost. He asked question after question. Finally, Tom said, 'Will you please give Marty the church?' He needs it.''

Put it down, Weinstein, who is currently serving a total of 39 years in prison for rape and sexual abuse, paid the $100,000 needed to complete the construction of the church. The production called the holy structure “St. Thomas”. The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 2003, but went home empty-handed. Scorsese would eventually win Best Picture and Best Director for 2006's The Departed.