Trivia / The Boondock Saints

• Billing Displacement:
  • Willem Dafoe is not the main character of the first film, despite what the poster in the main page may tell you.
  • Peter Fonda doesn't appear until the last 20 minutes of All Saint's Day, yet still got billed over Billy Connolly (Il Duce and the father of Connor and Murphy).
• Box Office Bomb: Both films:
  • First film: Budget - $6 million. Box Office - $30,471.
  • Slightly Downplayed with the second film: Budget - $8 million. Box Office - $10.6 million. It broke even but not enough success to call it a hit.
• California Doubling: Both films are set in Boston, but, apart from the flyover establishing shots, were filmed in Toronto. The CN Tower and Toronto Dominion bank locations can be seen in various shots.
  • In a more specific example, the church scene at the start of the first film was shot in an Anglican Church rather than a Catholic Church, due to the producers being unable to convince any Catholic diocese to allow them to film on their property. The Anglican traditions are considered about as close to Catholicism as non-Catholic Christian churches get, but you can still spot a few differences in the service as shown.
• Channel Hop: The movie was supposed to be released by Miramax, as Harvey Weinstein took interest in the script (as rumors state, anyway; as some say he didn't even read the script, just that it was hot property) and even offered extensive goods to Duffy such as buying a bar Duffy worked at, to even allowing Duffy's band The Brood to have a record deal to do the film's soundtrack. Unfortunately, due to Duffy's infamous ego, all of these plans collapsed and the film was instead given to Franchise Pictures.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Spanish countries: The Saints of Hell
  • Germany: The Bloody Path of God
  • Japan: Executioners
  • Brazil: Punisher Saints
  • Canada: Mission from God
  • Croatia: Saints Against the Mafia
  • Czech Republic: Blood Brothers
  • France: Boston Angels
  • Greece: Exterminator Saints
  • Hungary: Brotherhood
  • Slovenia: Dirty Saint
  • Spain: The Chosen Ones
  • Argentina: The Fifth Hell
  • Taiwan: Vanguard
  • Turkey: Saints of the City
• The Danza: Carmine DiStephano plays Augustus DiStephano, a retired mob boss. Also, David Della Rocco is played by none other than a man named David Della Rocco.
• Dawson Casting: A rather bizarre example in that, in the sequel, Judd Nelson plays the son of the Big Bad of the first film, played by Carlo Rota, when Nelson is actually a year and a half older than Rota (Nelson was born on 1959 and Rota was born on 1961).
• Deleted Role: Janet Wright had a small role as Connor and Murphy's eccentric mother who calls them from Ireland (jokingly) threatening to kill herself. The scene was cut from the final film, but can be seen on Blu-ray, DVD.
• Development Hell: The second film took ten years to make due to a lack of funding and Troy Duffy's ego. The third film, thus far, seems to be in the same position. Duffy has said if negotiations go through, the story may be continued in a TV series, but the progress seems to be going slowly (the sequel not being anywhere near the cult favorite the original was hasn't helped).
• Distanced from Current Events: The film had a delayed release and was heavily restricted by MPAA after the Columbine shootings because of the violent content
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • Apparently, Billy Connolly was so stoked to be Playing Against Type so radically in the role of Il Duce and having so much fun playing a psycho with guns strapped all over him that they had to add the huge cigar the character constantly smokes because unless they stuck something in his mouth he simply couldn't stop smiling.
  • During the famous "cat scene", Rocco was told that the prop mechanism meant to simulate the gunshot and subsequent spraying of liquid cat (nicknamed the "Cat Cannon") wouldn't be very loud, when in fact it was practically as loud as a full-powered gunshot. As a result, when it goes off, the scene of the trio getting practically thrown onto the floor and the subsequent discombobulated panicking was genuine.
• Fake American: The film was shot in Toronto, and most of the supporting parts are played by Canadian actors.
• Fake Irish: Needless to say, Billy Connolly is not actually Irish. Neither are the actors playing his sons, though Sean Patrick Flanery does have Irish ancestry.
• Fake Russian: Fat Man (Yuri Petrova) is the only Russian played by an actual Russian.
• The Foreign Subtitle:
  • Finland: The Boondock Saints: Angels of Southern Boston
  • Italy: The Boondock Saints: Final Justice
• Inspiration for the Work: Troy Duffy was inspired by his disgust at seeing a drug dealer taking money from a corpse across the hall from his apartment.
• Invisible Advertising: The film was all ready to be released, but unfortunate timing meant it had to be released quietly. The second movie was set up this way at first, but positive reception among the fans gave it two wider releases.
• Orphaned Reference: When the McManus brothers arrive to whack Vincenzo, they tell Rocco to hold off on shooting another random lowlife in a separate stall and let them do the deed, implying that It's Personal for them. In the script, the lowlife was a pimp who had previously roughed up an innocent nun (the one we see bruised and bloodied in the hospital), and the brothers caught sight of him entering the peep show behind Vincenzo.
• Production Posse: Billy Connolly (Il Duce) and Gerard Parkes (Doc) both previously worked on The Muppets franchise. Connolly was Billy Bones in Muppet Treasure Island, and Gerard Parkes was a different Doc in Fraggle Rock.
• Playing Against Type: Il Duce, the stone-cold veteran hitman, is played by Billy Connolly of all people. He's done serious roles before, but not like this.
• Scully Box: In order to appear taller on screen, Willem Dafoe wore platform shoes during filming. This is especially noticeable at his first appearance, when he crouches down near the body in the alleyway.
• Troubled Production: The film became an indie Cult Classic, but the abusive behavior of writer/director Troy Duffy while making it demolished his short-lived fame, burned his bridges to Hollywood, and alienated his friends.
  • Despite having no filmmaking education or experience, Duffy's script for The Boondock Saints ignited a bidding war and got the attention of Harvey Weinstein and Miramax, who won out by agreeing to pay $300,000 for the script and $15 million for the budget, letting Duffy direct and his band The Brood provide the soundtrack, and even buying out the bar Duffy worked at to make him a co-owner.
  • Duffy wasted no time allowing his good fortune to go to his head. Signed on to the William Morris agency and convinced he was now a major player in Hollywood, he enlisted two friends of his, Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith, to shoot documentary footage of his rise to power and manage The Brood in his absence. But Duffy's boorish behavior — which included insulting various actors and producers, spending his time drinking and partying in bars, and attending meetings hungover in his overalls — rapidly deteriorated the relationship between Duffy and Miramax.
  • Pre-production stalled out over casting choices and Duffy lost patience, threatening to walk to a different agency. This was one of the last straws that prompted the studio to cut all contact from Duffy and put the film in turnaround. Duffy also heard rumors that he was placed on Harvey Weinstein's infamous "blacklist", which would effectively cut him out of Hollywood entirely. Enraged and scrambling for someone to back the film, Duffy eventually found financing in Franchise Pictures, who offered to provide a budget of $6 million for the film. Despite the slashed budget compared to Miramax, Duffy was elated and took the deal, beginning full production and shooting in Toronto in 1998. Despite the chaos that had marked the film up to this point, shooting was largely uneventful by comparison.
  • Then came distribution efforts. Attempts to shop the film around at the 1999 Cannes Festival proved fruitless, with no offers made for the film. Smith and Montana blamed Weinstein's influence for pushing studios away, but equally likely that the backlash against violent media from the Columbine shooting three weeks prior made studios unwilling to pick it up. The film was eventually picked up by Blockbuster, whom gave it a limited release in five theaters due to the lingering effects of Columbine. The film itself was a Box Office Bomb that was slaughtered by critics, making only $30,471.
  • As one last insult, Duffy saw nothing from the exceptional home video sales of the film. The contract he had signed cut him, the producers, and the cast out of all royalties and home video revenue. Duffy eventually won back royalties after a long legal battle and made a sequel ten years later, but lost his bar, his band^note which managed to release one album around the first film's release that sold a paltry 690 copies. They were dropped by their label and promptly disbanded, with Duffy viciously refusing to give his band members royalties when asked, and his friends Smith and Montana would use their footage to make the documentary film Overnight, chronicling Duffy's actions during the production.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Mark Wahlberg turned down one of the lead roles in order to star in Boogie Nights.
  • Troy Duffy expressed interest in casting Stephen Dorff, Brendan Fraser, Nicky Katt, and Ewan McGregor, with two of them as the brothers, but no decisions were finalized. Duffy flew to New York to meet with McGregor and offer him one of the lead roles. At a night out, Duffy got drunk and they got into an argument over the death penalty and McGregor passed on the film. This led to Miramax putting the film in turnaround.
  • Kenneth Branagh, Robert De Niro, Kevin Spacey and Patrick Swayze passed on the role of Paul Smecker. Also considered were Bill Murray, Mike Myers and Sylvester Stallone.
  • Troy Duffy dismissed several casting choices for the film — he refused to meet with Brad Pitt because he'd already played an Irishman in The Devil's Own and rejected Keanu Reeves and Ethan Hawke, calling the former "a fucking punk" and the latter "a talentless fool".
  • A video game was supposed to be made based on the film, but was later cancelled.

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