MCN Interview: Overnight

In Hollywood, the line between chutzpah and hubris is razor-thin, and every bit as sharp. One man’s tragic flaw is the next guy’s punch line. The Michaels, Eisner and Ovitz, probably haven’t enjoyed a moment of their shared experience in a Delaware courtroom, but, for the rest of us, the trial is as entertaining as anything on ABC, notwithstanding the tag team of Nicollette Sheridan and Terrell Owens.

Filmmaker/musician Troy Duffy, the focus of Mark Brian Smith and Tony Montana’s documentary Overnight, began walking the thin line between chutzpah and hubris when he climbed into bed seven years ago with Harvey Weinstein. Duffy certainly wasn’t the first Orson Welles wanna-be to capsize on the rocky shoals bordering Tinseltown, after succumbing to the song of Miramax’s sirens. Sadly, Overnight likely won’t prevent many other aspiring geniuses from making the same mistakes as Duffy, whose The Boondock Saints fell victim to one of the sharpest turnarounds in Hollywood history.

Those too young -- or unemployed -- to have subscribed to the trades in 1997, probably are unaware that Duffy’s script for The Boondock Saints once incited a feeding frenzy among agents and studio executives looking to sign the next Quentin Tarantino or Kevin Smith. The quasi-religious vigilante tome had most of the ingredients right, including a manageable budget, the promise of many elegantly choreographed murders and a half-dozen roles custom-tailored to fit the current generation of scruffy James Dean look-alikes.

When the bidding war came down to New Line and Miramax, Weinstein swooped into town with an offer Duffy couldn’t refuse (and almost any other studio executive in their right mind wouldn’t make). Not only was the brash and faux-working-class New Hampshire native promised directorial control of Boondock Saints and given the OK to supply its soundtrack -- in addition to a half-million bucks -- but Weinstein also famously offered to buy the West Hollywood tavern, J. Sloane’s, for its former bartender and new partner. In doing so, he may not have handed the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to Duffy and his close-knit posse of friends, bandmates and fellow boozehounds , but they could see it from Sloan’s.

It was that final gesture that sealed the deal, even as fellow filmmakers cautioned against taking Weinstein’s grandiose promises as gospel. Even then, the shelves of Miramax overflowed with reels of undistributed films and unmade scripts.

As the ink dried on the contract, the chain-smoking Duffy rushed to do most of the usual things a newly minted mogul does with his money … buy a car and cool threads, then get stinking drunk. His association with the William Morris Agency had already secured an agreement from Paramount Pictures to buy Duffy's next two scripts for $500,000 (enough dough for him to quit slinging burgers at a topless joint), but Boondock Saints was ready to go, with a recording deal for his band imminent, as well.

It was right about this time, too, that Duffy’s hubris kicked into high gear. Smith and Montana’s cameras were there to record for posterity the tens of thousands of f-words and clouds of nicotine that passed through their former pal’s lips, as well as much internecine squabbling, phone slammings and other boorish behavior.

Duffy’s first mistake, apparently, was taking the concept of creative control to his 26-year-old heart. His second was vetoing Weinstein’s many casting suggestions -- all the usual Miramax suspects -- and telling anyone who would listen that Weinstein was, among other unflattering things, an “asshole.” If Duffy had taken one film course while in college, he might have been cautioned about cussing out a guy, who, in 1997, was arguably the king of Hollywood.

Everyone in the movie racket knows someone who’s allegedly been told they’ll never work in “this town” again, yet somehow manages to avoid the unemployment lines. In Duffy’s case, it was true. In no time at all, he went from Hollywood’s flavor-of-the-month to someone who’s calls and e-mails need never be returned.

At several points in Overnight, the bearded maestro brags, ''This is something nobody in the history of the world has ever achieved,'' referring to the film and record deals he was always just minutes away from consummating. The achievement remains as elusive today as it did in 1997.

Both Boondock Saints and the Brood’s album both found distribution, however brief and unsubstantially funded. Today, the video enjoys something akin to cult status among college-aged young men, for whom vigilante justice remains a cool option to court-administered justice, while the album sold about 640 copies and was quickly relegated to the remainder bins.

Because the movie was a flop, Duffy never expected that the documentary would be finished. When he learned that it was, Smith and Montana allege that he threatened to do heinous things to both their movie and physical beings. Because of this, some critics have questioned whether the release of Overnight might be motivated more by revenge than enlightenment on the movie industry, and, yes, it very easily could be too “inside baseball” for folks not living in Tribeca or L.A. to appreciate.

Still, anyone who’s spent more than a day working in the business of show -- including the guy who sweeps up behind the elephants in the circus -- will recognize the pathology at play in Overnight. Film students probably also should be required to take a look at it -- alongside the HBO mini-series chronicling last year’s disaster-in-the-making, The Battle of Shaker Heights, from Miramax’s Project Greenlight -- if only to avoid the pitfalls on display.

Montana is a Chicago native, who majored in communications at Loyola University, before going into film and television work. Smith graduated with a degree in film production, from NYU, before moving west and getting into the television business. In 1997, both men were part of Duffy’s inner-circle and stood to benefit from any success associated with the movie and band.

They were interviewed last week, in the Wilshire Boulevard offices of the movie’s publicists. Overnight has opened in New York, and will slowly make its way around the country in the coming weeks.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: Some critics have suggested that your motivation for going ahead with Overnight -- even after it bombed -- was “payback” for his obnoxious behavior, or merely for being a bad business partner.

MARK BRIAN SMITH: What ended up on the cutting-room floor was much worse than what got into the movie. Troy’s tirades would have taken over the entire movie, and audiences would have gotten up walked away from it.

They would have thought, “This is too much, we can’t take it anymore.” We couldn’t take it anymore.

TONY MONTANA: We really tried hard to make the movie not seem like a revenge piece, because the critics would have really killed us for that. Naturally, we had personal feelings toward Troy -- and about what happened to us -- but we wanted to show the major events that occurred in the making of the film, and how Troy and the people around him reacted to them.

We had studied his behavior for four straight years, and knew him better than he knew himself.

MBS: Our intentions never were to do a making-of or behind-the-scenes documentary. Even if the film and music had become huge, we still would have produced a documentary that showed all the behavior in between.

Then, of course, people would have walked out of our film, thinking, “You can act like that, and still be rewarded?” There were separate realities at play.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: Instead of being seen as some sort of a cautionary tale, then, Troy’s success would have given aspiring filmmakers license to misbehave.

TM: Exactly. In this town, maybe 99 percent of them would have thought it was cool … depending on what side of the business they’re on. Originally, when the deal with Miramax went down -- and Troy was all over the trades, and in USA Today -- a lot of people in Hollywood looked at him as if he were some kind of folk hero.

Here was this guy, from back East, who was giving hope to all struggling filmmakers. On the other hand, there were all these people in the business who had struggled a long time to get their scripts seen by agents and studios, and they hated him for his success. They couldn’t wait to see him fail.

MBS: I get a lot of satisfaction out of the fact that this was a no-holds-barred piece. You see books like “Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film” and “Killer Instinct,” but the whole blacklisting thing that happened before our eyes was important to capture.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: When Troy’s deal is announced, the crowd at Sloan’s is shown celebrating wildly. About 80 minutes later, your cameras capture the tavern being torn down. That’s quite a story arc.

MBS: The day before the Oscars, Harvey pulled up to the bar in a limousine, came inside and has some beers with Troy. He told Troy how much he loved the bar, how all the taps reminded him of places back East, and, by the way, why don’t I buy this as part of the deal and we can run it together?

That’s when Troy decided to go Harvey, and not Mike De Luca, at New Line. He’d heard Harvey stories from several other filmmakers, but producers and agents never said anything negative, because they were afraid of him and might have to do business with him.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: When did things start to go bad?

MBS: The development deal with Harvey actually was only for a short time. He didn’t like the fact that Troy kept rejecting his choices for actors. Troy liked Ewan McGregor, and thought he could sit down with him over a few beers and develop a relationship, but, then, they argued about the death penalty and that was the end of Ewan.

After a while, Harvey and Meryl Poster decided it wasn’t worth the effort, and Miramax put the project on ice for the next six months. There would be a little more money coming in for pre-production, but, basically, there no longer was any publicity on the project and other potential buyers considered it damaged goods.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: Troy’s other passion was his band, the Brood, which ostensibly would supply the music for Boondock Saints and an album of original music. What happened there?

TM: In the fall or winter of 1997, Troy got this 95-page contract from Maverick Records, but they pulled it away a day before the band could sign it. And, that’s also when Harvey put the film into turnaround. So, in the course of two months, the Band had lost out on a major film and music deal.

Meanwhile, we’re still shooting. We agreed to continue, because we knew Troy wasn’t going to give up. From that point, we knew our film would be dark, but decided to embrace the darkness

MOVIE CITY NEWS: I kept waiting to see the Brood (later renamed, The Boondock Saints) actually perform some of its music. We only get snatches of material from rehearsals, though.

MBS: We used a bit of “Holy Fool” and “Pipes,” at the end. But, we didn’t approach Troy or the band about licensing the music, because of the problems we had with Troy. We also cut some of the music out of an earlier version of the film for other legal reasons.

It wasn’t worth approaching the band, because we knew that they -- they, meaning Troy -- never were going to cooperate.

TM: Troy was the puppet master. He didn’t give the others a say in the matter. The album flopped so badly, Atlantic eventually gave them the tapes back, so we couldn’t go through the label.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: I take it that Troy doesn’t approve of the fact Overnight is being released, then?

TM: Because he didn’t think we could support ourselves -- and the movie flopped so badly -- he assumed the documentary would never be completed or shown. We went underground, and lied to everyone except our closest friends and family, telling them the project was shelved.

MBS: Anyone, like outside editors, who came on board the project had to sign a secrecy agreement.

TM: The story didn’t end the way Troy wanted. It’s that simple. He thought he could behave any way he wanted to, for four straight years.

As long as he was successful, at the end of the day, he knew there was this documentary that would show he was always right.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: Some of the press material I’ve seen compares the movie to a Cinderella story gone bad … a “Tinseltown parable.” But, Troy’s hubris -- he must have known his trash-talking would get back to Harvey and the people at William Morris -- reminded me more of something out of a Shakespearean tragedy.

TM: Troy knew the cameras were around, and expected them to be there. He never played to the camera, or directed us, but he always wanted us to be around … even when he was buying his car from the deal money, or his leather coat.

There were only three times during production when he asked not to be filmed, and those were the occasions he threatened us.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: The Syndicate (Troy’s circle of friends and creative partners) was envisioned as a cooperative effort, but he couldn’t seem to handle criticism or initiative on the part of others.

TM: Early on, I asked someone we trusted at William Morris about when we should bring a lawyer into the project. He said, right away. The next day, we’re watching clips at Mark’s apartment, and Troy walks in with C.B. (friend and producer, Chris Brinker). He picked up a chair, put it in the doorway and sat down, smoking.

He said, “When I want a fuckin’ lawyer involved, there will be a fuckin’ lawyer involved. Until I say so, there won’t be. I made this thing happen.”

Then, he added, “By the way, you guys missed an important moment in my life yesterday, after we left the William Morris Agency. I had just bought my car, and was showing it to all the agents. You guys had already left. When you guys are filming these things, I want cameras everywhere, and rolling all the time.”

MOVIE CITY NEWS: Now that it’s out on video, Boondock Saints enjoys something of a cult following, especially among college students. Yet, in the small handful of cities in which it was released, critics were quite unforgiving of its vigilantism and bloodshed. What was all the fuss about, in 1997?

TM: They saw the product on the page as an opportunity. Quentin had done so well with his movies, the studios were looking for similar material. And, at the time, there were all these Quentin wanna-bes.

They thought that Troy showed enough originality, and, like Quentin, had a unique sense of dialogue and pop culture. They really thought they could make money with this endeavor … especially if they put together an attractive cast.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: For a guy who thought he knew more about making movies than Harvey Weinstein, his biggest blunder might have been letting William Morris sign away his video rights to the picture.

TM: Yes, that was pretty stupid. Boondock Saints is even bigger now than it was then.

November 20, 2004