Overview
Troy Duffy is an American filmmaker and musician. He has directed two films, The Boondock Saints and its sequel The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. Duffy was the subject of the 2003 documentary film Overnight.
Film career
Duffy moved to Los Angeles in his twenties to pursue a music career with his band, The Brood. While seeking gigs, he worked at a bar where he wrote the script for the film The Boondock Saints during his break periods. The inspiration for the screenplay happened one day when he came home from his job to find a dead woman being wheeled out of a drug dealer's apartment across the hall. Duffy then rented a computer and wrote the screenplay for The Boondock Saints based on his disgust at what he saw:
The script featured two brothers in Boston dedicated to killing Mafia thugs.
Duffy had completed the screenplay in fall of 1996 and passed it to a producer's assistant at New Line Cinema to be read by a senior executive. The screenplay changed hands through multiple studios and Duffy was approached by multiple producers for the rights. In March 1997, he was contracted by Paramount Pictures for $500,000, and later in the month, Miramax Films won a bidding war to buy The Boondock Saints. The studio offered $450,000 to Duffy to write and direct the film. It was reported the script was worth $300,000, and the film itself was originally given a $15 million budget by Miramax's Harvey Weinstein. Duffy's band The Brood would do the soundtrack, and as a bonus, Miramax offered to buy and throw in co-ownership of J. Sloan's, the bar where Duffy worked.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).