Boondock Saints North American Press Junket 2010
Boondock Saints, LLC / Sony Pictures - April 24, 2010
Hmmm...how to explain this one?
Released in 2000 on about half-a-dozen screens nationwide, the film "The Boondock Saints" went on to become a phenomenon in the home video arena, becoming one of the most successful cult hits in the history of cinema. There's not a college student or male under 30 who hasn't seen it. Cut to 2010, and the long-awaited, but seemingly unlikely sequel was also about to be released on DVD. What better way to celebrated the first film's 10th Anniversary and the release of "BDS II" than to do a take-no-prisoners, grassroots press junket across the United States?
Jointly funded by the Boondocks Saints, LLC and Sony Pictures, the tour was equal parts college symposiums, impromptu rock concerts, early morning media appearances and late-night, drunken fan fests. Impressario was the films' producer, Chris Brinker, while circus ringmaster was director Troy Duffy. The revolving cast (different at every whistle stop) included the cast of the film and the three rock acts featured in the sequel's soundtrack.
Over the course of a couple months, we traversed a good 50% of the nation, from L.A. throughout the Southwest, the mid-South, up to Chicago, on to Toronto, then New York, Boston and Maine; back through the Mid-Atlantic and across the country to the West Coast again. Sleeping three hours a night; slamming fast food at truck stops; managing logistics of a traveling circus and myriad artistic temperments. Not for the faint-hearted or the PR flack of weak constitution.
Ostensibly hired for my marketing and media management skills, I was generally found behind the wheel of the Boondock Saints graphically-wrapped, 42-foot tour bus, unwittingly charged with delivering everyone alive to each subsequent stop. When the big-wheeled behemoth was parked, my comrade Vallery Kountze and I would be working feverishly to secure the next venue, 500 miles up the road, and have radio & TV outlets breathlessly awaiting our arrival.
It was madness; it was foolishness. But somehow it paid off, because when "Boondock Saint II - All Saints Day" was released in late March, it debuted at the top of the Video charts, ahead of every Oscar-nominated film of 2010.
I wouldn't have missed it for the world, and I'd never do it again. Unless they asked me.