Hasitha Fernando looks at the story behind The Boondock Saints as it turns 25…
There’re very little movies out there whose behind-the-scenes drama have achieved the notoriety that The Boondock Saints has been able to achieve. The rise and fall of a narcissistic director, unnecessary meddling by a notorious studio head and the Columbine high-school massacre are just some of the disparate elements that show up to wreak havoc during the production of the movie. Today we look back at the making of The Boondock Saints as we attempt to summarize all the goings on that took place 25 years ago.
An unusual real-life inspiration for a screenplay
Troy Duffy was many things before he achieved notoriety in Hollywood. Before achieving fame, the hot-headed creative was once a disgruntled bouncer before he became a barman at a local dive called J. Sloan’s. And it was while working at this joint that the idea to write a script, centered around vigilante justice, popped into his head.
Now, the idea for that particularly unusual concept was inspired by something Duffy himself experienced. One day the soon-to-be filmmaker saw a drug dealer steal money off of a corpse, across the hallway of his apartment. Being an emotionally volatile individual by nature, Duffy was disgusted by this sleazy act and decided to craft a screenplay that revolved around two brothers who experience a divine intervention (of sorts) and started hunting down low-life scumbags who thrive in his hometown of Boston.
Troy Duffy’s screenplay was a hot property at the time
Although Duffy had no experience writing a screenplay let alone directing one, the screenplay he penned was one of the most sought-after efforts of that time. Completing the script in the fall of 1996, Duffy passed the output to a producer’s assistant over at New Line Cinema, so it’d be read by a Senior Executive eventually. His strategy worked way beyond his wildest dreams and resulted in a bidding war, which saw Miramax Films offering $450,000 for Duffy’s script as well as for him to direct the movie on a production budget of $15 million.
Miramax head honcho Harvey Weinstein further sweetened the deal by hiring Duffy’s band ‘The Brood’ to score the film and offering to buy up and co-own J. Sloan’s along with the filmmaker. This all seemed like a dream come true at first, however, little did Duffy know about the dirty and duplicitous ways of Hollywood showbiz.
Hollywood A-listers lined up to work in the film
Yep. You read that correctly. Multiple Hollywood A-listers and big-name actors showed enormous interest in working with the first-time director who’d crafted this script, which was considered a hot commodity by many studios. Duffy even threw parties and met some of them, which included the likes of Patrick Swayze, Ewan McGregor, Mark Wahlberg, and Jeff Goldblum. However, despite the meetings none of them actually ended up appearing in the movie. Wahlberg dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with Boogie Nights, Goldblum and Swayze simply passed over the project and Ewan McGregor, the actor who showed most interest, was turned off by a drunk Duffy rendered incoherent during one of their meetings.
Harvey Weinstein pulled the plug on the project
These days Harvey Weinstein is a persona non grata but two decades prior the controversial producer was one of Hollywood’s most powerful power players and then some. So, if you were an aspiring filmmaker or actor back in the day, it’d be an ill-advised move to get on the bad side of Weinstein. But that was exactly what Duffy went out and did when the infamous creative pulled the plug on the production of the movie. Suffice it to say Weinstein probably did everything in his considerable power to keep Duffy’s effort not see the light of day, which could be why the fledgling director had trouble finding a distributor. Duffy also suspected that Weinstein may have blacklisted The Boondock Saints when it debuted at Cannes.
The Columbine shooting added further controversy
Once Weinstein pulled the plug on Duffy’s venture the independent studio Franchise Pictures agreed to finance the project once all other elements were in place. Now that his access to A-listers were scuttled the filmmaker approached Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flannery to play the siblings who embark on a vigilante killing spree and Willem Dafoe was cast to play FBI agent Smecker. With the financial backing in place production commenced at Toronto, Canada on a budget of $ 6 million where a majority of the footage was shot, with Boston being chosen to shoot the flick’s final scenes.
As mentioned earlier Weinstein clearly flexed his influence to smear The Boondock Saints, however, another major deciding factor that badly affected its box-office earnings and securing a distributor was the Columbine High School massacre which shocked the nation a month prior. With society as a whole heavily scrutinizing media’s role in promoting violence the last thing any financier wanted was to stir up controversy by being associated with The Boondock Saints – which also saw a pair of white males inflicting their opinions through firearms and bloodshed. Hence, Duffy had a tough finding a distributor that agreed to sell his movies to theatres.
Blockbuster Video literally saved the movie
To say, The Boondock Saints had a very limited theatrical engagement is something of an understatement. Since all know distributors passed on the project due to various reasons, Duffy was only able to secure a deal for a theatrical run in five theatres in Boston for five weeks through Indican Pictures. It seemed as if all hope for recuperating the production cost was all but lost, until Blockbuster Video saw the film’s potential and decided to book the rights to the video rentals of the movie releasing The Boondock Saints as a “Blockbuster Exclusive”, which was a collection of independent direct-to-video flicks.
For the uninitiated, Blockbuster Video was an American video rental store chain that even had branches in several countries overseas at its peak. However, its popularity waned with the rise of video streaming services such as Netflix and the brand suffered further with the onset of The Great Recession of the late 2000s. But I digress. Through strong word-of- mouth The Boondock Saints gained a steady cult following which translated to it being a Blockbuster Video bestseller ultimately grossing a whopping $50 million in sales.
The behind the scenes documentary was a critically acclaimed hit
That’s right. As of writing the documentary aptly titled “Overnight” – which recorded the tumultuous production process of The Boondock Saints – holds a more than respectable 78% on Rotten Tomatoes while the movie it was based on possesses a less than favorable 26%. Two of Duffy’s friends Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith filmed the behind-the-scenes drama involving the rise and fall of their dear friend, over a period of four years.
The documentary painted Duffy as a victim of his own oblivious narcissism and inflated ego, who bad mouthed Hollywood A-listers and studio execs as well as his own friends, relatives, and business partners when things went south. Film critic Roger Ebert who gave Overnight 3 out of 4 stars summed up the effort best by saying, “[Duffy’s] family, we sense during one scene, has been listening to this blowhard for a lifetime, and although they are happy to share his success, they’re sort of waiting to see how he screws up…. So are we.”
The creation of a cult film and a lasting legacy
The Boondock Saints is the very definition of a cult film. Cobbled together on a shoestring budget by a first-time writer/director amidst an abysmally chaotic production and the lack of proper distribution, it’s a miracle the movie even profited in the first place. But such is the way of show business – one can never quite predict the success or failure of a film with utmost certainty. Thanks to Blockbuster Video Duffy and co. had a major hit in their hands but neither he nor Indican Picture saw a penny of those profits having signed away the DVD rights to 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment as part of the settlement with Franchise Pictures. To get his rightly deserved pound of flesh Duffy sued Franchise Picture and other undisclosed companies for royalties and succeeded in a big way, even receiving sequel rights.
The Boondock Saints received predominantly negative reviews when it debuted with most labelling it a “Tarantino knock-off” which channeled the “worst tendencies of the filmmaker”. However, as of writing the movie maintains a very strong 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes which speaks volumes about the IP’s appeal. After numerous delays Duffy crafted a sequel to his original hit titled The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, which was released on October 30, 2009 but this time around even the audiences’ reception to it was far from favorable.
Over the years Duffy has toyed with the possibility of going for a third round and in November 2021 an official sequel was announced which production slated to commence in May 2022. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent writer’s strike no update of the status of the production has been reported. Nevertheless, there’s no denying the strange appeal of what writer/director Troy Duffy had crafted with The Boondock Saints. The mishmash of Tarantino-isms coupled with stylized violence and dark comedy made for a distinct blend of eclectic flavors that was both unique and entertaining, and sometimes that’s all you need really.
Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.
