Troy Duffy

For a long time, Troy Duffy seemed destined to be more of a cautionary tale about the perils of fame than an actual filmmaker. In 1997, he was working at a bartender at a West Hollywood dive when he made headlines. His script for "The Boondock Saints" was sold to Miramax for a large sum in a much publicized deal, and Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein even promised to buy the bar where Duffy toiled as part of the deal. Duffy had moved to L.A. from Boston to be a musician, not a filmmaker, and his band, The Brood, was also fielding offers, thanks to the publicity from the screenplay deal. Unfortunately, Duffy grew increasingly frustrated with Miramax's handling of his project, and eventually, the production was put into turnaround. A record deal with Maverick also fell through. Through good times and bad, Duffy alienated friends and potential allies with his attitude. In 2003, two former confederates, Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith, turned what was originally intended to be a "making of" documentary about "Boondock" into a scathing depiction of Duffy's ego run amock, "Overnight." Duffy's violent, self-referential, Tarantino-influenced feature, about two brothers who think they have a religious calling to kill mobsters, received a limited theatrical release, but became a massive cult phenomenon on DVD. This eventually enabled him to reunite the cast, including Sean Patrick Flannery, Norman Reedus, and Willem Dafoe, to shoot a 2009 sequel, "The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day."