Last night at an all-media screening for The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, audience members – both fans who had lined up for blocks to get in to see the stars and director of this long-awaited sequel and journalists – were treated to a colorful Q&A session with the director of Boondock, Troy Duffy, and its stars Billy Connolly, Sean Patrick Flanery, and Norman Reedus.
After Duffy told the audience where the afterparty would be held, a journalist asked why there was so much time between movies. Duffy was somewhat discreet, replying, "There was a rather serious bit of litigation. We sued the people who financed Boondock I and a bunch of people that distributed it, as the movie was extremely financially successful and myself, the producers, and none of the actors saw a cent of that so me and CB [producer Chris Brinker] went after them."
He went on to add, "When you're writing for a sequel and there's a movie that's been deemed sacred ground by the fanbase that's the predecessor, you cannot do anything to tread on that, so it's a bit trickier than just being able to sit down and write something."
Later, an audience member asked if they realized the movie would still be a viable candidate for a sequel ten years later, and Connolly took the mike and offered a considerably more colorful take on the matter.
"The [movie] was dead in the water because those p---ks wouldn't distribute it, and all those other f*ckin' halfwits, and incidentally, those guys who put out the documentary [Overnight] about the making of Boondock I – disloyal a-holes. And the proof in the pudding is in the second one, absolutely everybody came back. The entire cast, the crew, everybody, if you ever need proof of the truth of that first one. F*ck them. But [the first movie], it wasn't getting distributed. He [Duffy] was getting really depressed 'cause he gave birth to the f*cking thing. He wrote it. And I remember saying to him, look, it will find its audience. I don't know how it will do it. It's just that way with a movie, when you know how it looks original, the language is original, the atmosphere's extraordinary, and it's, like, you know when you hear a record being played on the radio and you think, "Hit," you just get that thing. It's got that funk, that edge that other things don't have; well, I supported that [movie] because I'm an extremely clever person. And I told him – it was a joy to tell him – I don't know where its audience is gonna come from, but they're gonna hear this. They're gonna hear of it and tell each other. I'm nearly in tears, to be quite frank, because it happened and [when] I just stand here and look at you, I get really deeply moved. You did it. You made this... It's the only movie I've ever heard of that's bigger ten years after it came out than it was when it f*cking came out. So well done. It's you that's to be congratulated for that."
The documentary Overnight tells the "rags to riches" story of Duffy, who sells his script for The Boondock Saints to Harvey Weinstein, who also hires him to direct the film; he gets a record deal and a publicist at William Morris to boot. The doc started out as a fun project and turned into something far different. The doc posits that not only did Duffy blow it all, that he burned his bridges to charred remains. According to The Guardian, "What we don't see [in the doc] is his refusal to meet Brad Pitt because the actor had already played an Irishman in The Devil's Own, nor his disastrous meeting with Ewan MacGregor... MacGregor's refusal was the final straw for Weinstein. Already concerned about his well-publicized new protege's abrasive business style and heavy drinking, he put The Boondock Saints into turnaround. The rest of Overnight tracks Duffy's efforts to make the film with half the budget and a low-voltage cast, including Billy Connolly as the world's least convincing hitman." The movie didn't sell at Cannes, it goes into turnaround and eventually plays in a handful of theaters for a week, making a domestic gross of $30,471, his record deal is canceled, and he was persona non grata in Hollywood. The doc makes him look like a pompous jerk.
Will Boondocks II vindicate Duffy? Does it matter? In the end, the Boondock I fans, who not only sport t-shirts and hoodies and other Saints gear but even tattoos inspired by the movie, will get what they want, and based on the word-of-mouth popularity of the first movie, which was released only on DVD, the studio will too. Since the DVD's release in 2000, it's made $7,468,574 in the US alone.
At least one fan asked about Boondocks III, and she's definitely not the only one who will be lining up again – this time with cash in hand – to see this sequel and whatever comes after it.
1. I was at the screening last night, and I have to say that the second movie was a lot of fun. Duffy was also very vocal at the after party about the fans and how much he appreciated their support, as were Flanery and Reedus who were very approachable and signing everything.
Posted at 2:13PM on Oct 21st 2009 by John