The Aviator ended up being even more expensive than Gangs Of New York despite Scorsese's predictions that it would cost less.

Scorsese says that he never seems able to stick to the budgets he puts down on paper. The film, a biopic of Howard Hughes starring Leonardo Di Caprio, was more expensive to make than the Taxi Driver director's 2002 blockbuster The Gangs Of New York.

He told Time Out magazine: "I thought The Aviator would be smaller. And it turned out that it's maybe as big, maybe bigger than Gangs.

"But you think, 'Oh, I can do this.' You gloss over some of the more difficult aspects until you get on the set, you get into pre-production. Then you think, 'Oh my, this will take more planning than I thought."