American Gangster behind the scenes gags

American Gangster

In 2004, the director of the film was originally Anthony Fouquet, while the leading actors were Denzel Washington and Benicio del Toro, but it was forced to stop just one month before the filming started. , The reason is that Universal Company cancelled the filming job due to some budgetary issues.
When Anthony Fouquet was the director, actor Danya Lemiritz would also play a role in the film.
When the script completed by Terry George was rejected, Steven Zelian joined in and re-written the script for the entire story.
In real life, Rich Roberts and Frank Lucas are both Ridley Scott’s main filming consultants on the New York set.
Terry George was also the director of this film at one time, and the two leading actors at that time were Don Chandel and Jacques Phoenix. Phoenix once had a rivalry with Russell Crowe in "Gladiator", and the director also happened to be Ridley Scott.
Russell Crowe also specifically asked to listen to some recordings of Rich Roberts' speeches so that he could master all the little quirks of Roberts' language.
In the beginning of the film, it was called "Tru Blu" and "Butterfly Return".
In March 2005, when the film restarted, Terry George joined in as a screenwriter. The purpose was to rewrite the script so that the budget could be reduced to 50 million. At that time, George planned it and he planned Recruited Don Chandel, who has worked with "Rwanda Hotel", to play Frank Lucas.
During the period of Anthony Fouquet, he strongly recommended Ray Liotta and John C. Reilly to play two supporting roles in the film. This is one of the reasons why Universal cancelled the filming due to budget problems.
Although the film was stopped by Universal, Denzel Washington and Benicio del Toro still got their remuneration. Because they had signed a contract, Universal had to pay Washington 20 million each. US dollars, Del Toro 5 million US dollars, regardless of whether the film was made or not. When the film restarted, it meant that Washington was paid another 2,000 US dollars - that is, the role of Frank Lucas earned Washington a total of 40 million US dollars.
Denzel Washington spent a lot of time with Frank Lucas in real life. In order to thank Lucas for his help, Washington bought him a Rolls Royce after filming this film. As a thank you gift.
When filming on the ground in Chiang Mai, Thailand, director Ridley Scott hired many villagers from neighboring villages as extras, and some of them were really involved in the drug trade run by Frank Lucas during the Vietnam War.
Ridley Scott saw the new script written by Steven Zelian before filming "The Kingdom of Heaven" and immediately agreed to be the director of the film. While filming "A Good Year of the Year", Scott had been discussing the film with Russell Crowe, and in the end they all joined as they wished.
For the candidate to play Rich Roberts, director Ridley Scott and producer Brian Glazer had two good candidates at the beginning, one is Russell Crowe and the other is Brad. · Pete, Crow won in the end.