Ten years. It's been 10 long years since the first Boondock Saints emerged on the scene at the Cannes film festival, and the cult fanbase surrounding it is at a fever pitch, anticipating the release of the long-awaited sequel. And few have been waiting longer than I have. After all, it was over seven years ago that I was the first to announce to the world that it was happening. Seven years. But fate was not content to let director Troy Duffy achieve his dream as it was intended back then. In fact, the road would prove harder and more treacherous than initially anticipated.

Duffy himself has become the poster child for the meteoric rise and fall of Hollywood hot picks, as he was plucked from obscurity by the Weinsteins to write and direct the screenplay he'd written (Boondock Saints). So confident were the Weinsteins that, as a gift, they bought the bar Duffy was working at and gave it to him. That bar would become his base of operations while assembling his film. But when a casting dispute caused Duffy to butt heads with the Weinsteins, Miramax quickly scuttled him and refused to work with him again. Duffy's contract said he had final say over the casting, but the Weinsteins insisted that since their names began with the word Wein and ended with Stein, they could rip up the contract and throw him to the wolves -- which they did.

Undeterred, Duffy assembled the cash to make the film with the cast he'd initially wanted (after all, who cared about this Brad Pitt guy and that Marky Mark character that the Weinsteins wanted as leads?) and took it to the Cannes film festival. So what happened?

From my interview seven years ago: "One word: Columbine," he told me. "We had our screenings for the industry right in the thick of it. I think we all remember the relentless clips from Basketball Diaries and the Matrix bombarding us on the news every day. Clinton was also threatening to form a judiciary committee to look into violent films. Anything with violence was being held back. Anything with youthful violence was being buried. The 'Trench Coat Mafia' aspect of Columbine was even seen as a parallel to some of the wardrobe in Boondock. While our screenings were always packed, no one was coming forward to buy the film for theatrical release. Finally, one of the acquisitions people pulled me aside and told me that Boondock had been blacklisted due to the pressures the industry was receiving from the Columbine incident.

"I released it with the help of Blockbuster and at some of my own expense in three theaters outside of L.A. and two way outside of Boston. But with no press machine behind it, we were pretty much relying on walk-ins. So, not much there, I'm afraid. As for the film festivals, we played in Palm Springs, no awards. We screened in Cannes for foreign sales and we were rejected at Sundance. The highlight of our festival ride was the Tokyo International Film Festival -- 2000 screaming Japanese fans gave us a standing ovation. We also screened it at the German Fantasy Film Festival where it was well received again. Blockbuster saved our asses in North America. They pumped Boondock because they had faith in the movie."

With rising popularity and a cult following beginning to pay the bills by purchasing official Boondock Saints gear, Duffy was poised to make his film and prove everyone wrong again. But then he was dealt a crippling blow by a pair of documentarians who once chonicled him and were pinning their hopes on his success to make it big themselves. The film, Overnight, exposed his tremendous ego and temper problems, making him the laughingstock of Hollywood. In what would prove to be his biggest PR error, Duffy decided to let the film just go away without answering any questions on it. It stuck and the documentary, flawed and biased though it was, became the official story. Playing down the video/DVD success of the film, laughing about his failed attampts at success and ultimately ignoring the Columbine connection, the film bitterly lambasted Duffy while conconting Weinstein brother conspiracy theories -- oh, and forgetting to mention that they felt that Duffy owed the filmmakers money. Ahem.

But Duffy would have the last laugh. Weathering that terrible storm, he finally managed to scrape the money together and reassemble the cast to make the sequel, some 10 years later. Duffy, by all accounts, is a changed man. Humbled by the making of Boondock Saints as well as the firestorm of Overnight, it reportedly tempered him into a much more controlled, focused artist devoid of his initial arrogance (which Duffy and friends do not deny). This Friday the cult hit returns with a bang, opening in select theaters nationwide.

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