In October 2006, Fort Worth Weekly reported the story of how Fort Worth’s Chad Feehan had scored a huge hit. His slasher flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, filmed in Texas, had played to an ecstatic crowd of about 1,400 people at the Toronto International Film Festival and been immediately bought for $3.5 million by legendary film mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Not bad for a 27-year-old producing his first feature film.
“A surefire attention-grabber for art house nuts as well as popcorn fanatics, Mandy Lane should have no problem putting butts in the seats,” wrote Brian Abrams, noting that the young producer was already at work on his next project.
Five and a half years later, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane has indeed become a Hollywood legend, but not for reasons that Feehan or anyone else could have imagined or wanted.
After changing ownership, the film descended into distribution hell, set for first one release date then another before finally being buried in the vault of a German corporation, not even given the kind of direct-to-DVD release that the worst horror films often receive. Its inaccessibility has made it an object of fascination among horror enthusiasts, along with the fact that some of its cast and crew have gone on to greater fame.
Having an early triumph turn into such a nightmare might have soured some people permanently on the film business, but Chad Feehan is still in Hollywood, hard at work. He crossed over to the creative side of show business in the wake of Mandy Lane and has worked in both films and other media, winning the notice of influential people in Tinseltown. At long last, Chad Feehan’s career seems to be looking up again.
[…] Festival, SXSW, and the Sitges Film Festival in Spain. The film was also Fort Worth, TX native Chad Feehan’s thesis project while finishing up his final year at AFI in Los […]