Trailer
Plot summary
In 1998, a Halloween costume party brings Eric Bottler together again with his old high school crowd: Linus, Hutch, Windows, and Zoe. Bottler now sells cars at his father's dealership and finds them unchanged, still devoted to Star Wars. The group is counting down to Episode I: The Phantom Menace, months from opening. Linus revives the scheme he and Bottler once shared, getting inside Skywalker Ranch and taking a rough cut of the film; Bottler turns him down. The next day, Hutch and Windows bring Bottler news at work that Linus is dying of cancer, with about four months left while the movie opens in six. To mend things with his former best friend, Bottler agrees to the trip, and the group drives off in Hutch's van.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Fanboys (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Kyle Newman was given just 36 hours to reassemble his film and edit back in the key motivational cancer plotline.
- Fanboys was re-edited to strip out the cancer plot and replace much of it with raunchy, vulgar humor, and fans began an internet campaign demanding the original version with the cancer storyline be released in theaters.
- After being given an advance screening of the rough cut, George Lucas gave the film his "stamp of approval" and offered the original Star Wars sound effects for use in it.
- Steven Brill retaliated against fans in online correspondence that ended up released to the public, calling them "losers", and in a profanity-laden email called one complaining fan "dumb" and threatened to "hunt him down".
- The film's fictional town of Shandal, Ohio, is an anagram of Ashland, Ohio, where Cline grew up, and he wanted a special screening held with fans in his home state.
- The cast and creatives wanted a Fanboys sequel, but Cline said the film's attachment to Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Harry Knowles, all of whom had since been accused of sexual assault, made that unlikely.
- Filmmaker and Star Wars fan Kevin Smith viewed an early version of the film and asked for, and was given, a cameo in it.
