American Gangster Gets Another Shot
Source: Variety
March 14, 2005
Universal Pictures and Imagine are ready to give American Gangster another chance with Hotel Rwanda writer/director Terry George, reports Variety.
In October, weeks before production was set to begin, the studio pulled the plug because of fears that the period film would cost more than $100 million. Antoine Fuqua was to direct Denzel Washington and Benicio Del Toro, who both had pay-or-play deals.
Imagine's Brian Grazer and Universal vice chairman Scott Stuber will redevelop the film with George into a $50 million project. It is rumored that George's Hotel Rwanda star Don Cheadle may play the lead role of Frank Lucas, the mastermind of a scheme to smuggle heroin into the U.S. in the caskets of soldiers killed in Vietnam.
Del Toro had been set to play narcotics lawman Richie Roberts, who brought down the Harlem drug kingpin called Superfly and then drafted Lucas to help bring down the dirty cops and overseas conspirators who made it easy to import heroin into the U.S.
Source: Variety
March 14, 2005
Universal Pictures and Imagine are ready to give American Gangster another chance with Hotel Rwanda writer/director Terry George, reports Variety.
In October, weeks before production was set to begin, the studio pulled the plug because of fears that the period film would cost more than $100 million. Antoine Fuqua was to direct Denzel Washington and Benicio Del Toro, who both had pay-or-play deals.
Imagine's Brian Grazer and Universal vice chairman Scott Stuber will redevelop the film with George into a $50 million project. It is rumored that George's Hotel Rwanda star Don Cheadle may play the lead role of Frank Lucas, the mastermind of a scheme to smuggle heroin into the U.S. in the caskets of soldiers killed in Vietnam.
Del Toro had been set to play narcotics lawman Richie Roberts, who brought down the Harlem drug kingpin called Superfly and then drafted Lucas to help bring down the dirty cops and overseas conspirators who made it easy to import heroin into the U.S.