Despite “Gladiator’s” slew of Oscar nominations and more than $187 million in box-office receipts, the film’s cinematographer, John Mathieson, said they never had a script to work from before or during the 80-day shoot. Mathieson said that he and director Ridley Scott never knew what they would be doing from day to day.

“It was being rewritten as we shot and we had to go back and pick up scenes and kill people over and over again,” he said.

Mathieson didn’t glean his inspiration for the film’s look from earlier Roman-period spectaculars like “Spartacus,” “Ben Hur” and “The Robe,” but did it by controlling natural light to blend solid structures with digital images.

The director and cinematographer paired up again on current blockbuster “Hannibal,” and during the shoot, Mathieson said he was so disgusted by some scenes that he asked Scott, “Do you think we have something watchable?”

Mathieson’s current project is a sci-fi thriller with Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges.

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Director John Boorman said he tried in vain to obtain the rights to several of author John Le Carre’s novels and make them into films, including “The Little Drummer Girl” and “Small Town in Germany.” Rights to those had already been snapped up, so when Columbia bought the rights to “The Tailor of Panama” and asked Boorman to direct the $50 million movie starring Pierce Brosnan, Goeffrey Rush and Jamie Lee Curtis and co-rewrite Le Carre’s own script adaptation, he jumped at the chance.

“We only met twice during the filming, but got on enormously well he’s wise and funny and a great raconteur.”

How did Le Carre feel about his script being revised? Boorman said that Le Carre told him it was like a cow being turned into a bouillon cube. Brosnan was reticent about doing the film, feeling it was risky for his image. But he ultimately succumbed to the lure of working with Boorman. In fact, the first test screening was a bit of a disaster, according to Boorman, because the audience had been expecting a quasi-Bond film and were disappointed that Brosnan’s character is the antitheses of Bond. Brosnan was also invaluable in getting the filmmakers into Panama.

“They were afraid we were going to slander their country, so they were making things very difficult,” said Boorman. “But when the president of Panama, a woman, heard that Pierce was the star and that he would be meeting with her personally, all doors opened including the doors to the presidential palace.”

Warren Beatty is sidestepping the blame for the delays on his long-suffering film “Town and Country,” placing it on the shoulders of producers at New Line Cinema. “It is because of problems with their bizarre production scheduling and a myriad of other problems,” Beatty said of the endless shoot and skyrocketing budget of upwards of $120 million.

Nevertheless, Beatty gamely praises the film, saying, “I think it’s funny.” As for the release date, perhaps the 12th, Beatty says even he is in the dark, although the producers have told him it will be out in April.

Contributing reporter Anita Talbert can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].