Dallas Buyers Club: the turbulent history of the film with Matthew McConaughey

This Oscar-winning drama turns 10 today.

Dallas Buyers Club of Jean-Marc Valléewas released in American theaters on November 1, 2013. A few months later, the film offered its duo of actors Matthew McConaughey/Jared Leto a double Oscar for best actor and best supporting actor, an unprecedented performance since Sean Penn And Tim Robbins For Mystic River ten years earlier.

A poignant account of the fight of Ron Woodroof, a homophobic Texan contaminated by the AIDS virus who decides to distribute experimental care to all HIV patients, it enjoyed great critical success from its presentation at the Toronto festival, coupled with real success popular, at least for a low-budget film (55 million dollars in revenue for only 5 million dollars, 400,000 admissions in France), and this before the consecration of the multiple awards collected by the film.

However, its genesis is not the fairy tale one might expect. Dallas Buyers Club even remained in the Hollywood boxes for almost two decades, traveling from studio to studio after several aborted attempts. Since the birth of the project to adapt Woodroof’s true story in 1992 (a few weeks before his death), great directors and great actors have succeeded one another in vain before the film had the trajectory that we know it to have. under the leadership of Jean-Marc Vallée (he disappeared in 2021).

Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto are exceptional in Dallas Buyers Club (review)

The first project dates from 1996
The history of Dallas Buyers Club was not born yesterday, since it appeared during Ron Woodroof’s lifetime. In 1992, the journalist from Dallas Morning News Bill Minutaglio writes a long article about a group of AIDS patients who are illegally undergoing experimental treatment with the help of their provider, Woodroof, who himself has the disease. The story reaches the ears of the screenwriter Craig Borten who decides to adapt it for the cinema. He met Woodroof in August, a month before the latter’s death from severe pneumonia, for a series of several interviews.

After his death, Borten approached several studios with the first draft of his screenplay, which convinced Columbia to start the project in 1996. The film even quickly found its director, Dennis Hopperas well as its main actor, a certain Woody Harrelson (of which we know personal and professional friendship which links him to Matthew McConaughey, who will reprise his role more than fifteen years later). Unfortunately at the time, the studio did not provide sufficient funds for the film, the company that bought Borten’s script went bankrupt, and the project ended up falling apart, Dennis Hopper And Woody Harrelson deciding to leave the ship.

From Brad Pitt to Ryan Gosling, a film stuck in the “development hell“
It would take almost five years for Borten to move forward again. With the help of the screenwriter Melisa Wallack, he rewrote the script and managed to convince producer Mike Brenner. The latter then sent the script to a young filmmaker on the rise: Marc Forsterjust crowned by the success ofIn the shadow of hatredfor which Halle Berry won the Oscar for best actress.

Better yet, at the time, Forster hoped to spin Brad Pitt in his next project and sends him a copy not only of his previous film, but also of the script of Dallas Buyers Club. Excited by both, Brad Pitt gives his agreement. With these two prestigious names in the cast, Brenner easily managed to sell the project to Universal this time. But the predicted hit did not come. Universal procrastinates, complains about an unfinished script, hires other authors (including Guillermo Arriagascreenwriter of the first films ofAlejandro González Inarritu) who pass it in turns.

Dallas Buyers Club therefore enters what we call the “development hell” Hollywood, where we find all these Arlesiennes, many of whom will probably never see the light of day. For more than ten years (an extremely rare duration even for the longest developments), the project floundered, slipping. Forster and Pitt finally gave up taken, just like Borten, resigned to losing his work and who plunged into depression, alcoholism and drugs. The film became a subject of joke in the corridors of Universal, including when a third draft was also unsuccessful. in the water in 2008 due to lack of funding. This time, we should have found Craig Gillespie behind the camera, and Ryan Gosling in front, in the role of Woodroof. But the subject of the film, too controversial, too sensitive, is a hindrance each time.

In 2009, Robbie Brenner took matters into his own hands at the request of Craig Borten. He drew a line under all the rewrites of the script and returned to the first version co-written with Wallack in 2000. He therefore decided to send it to Matthew McConaughey, himself a native of Dallas. So in full promotion of The Lincoln Defense (the film with which his career would be reborn after a multitude of forgettable romcoms), McConaughey was excited by the proposition and decided to become personally involved in the project, with the blessing of Sharon Woodroof, Ron’s sister, who had previously voiced his doubts about the successive castings of Brad Pitt And Ryan Goslingwhom she considered too different from her brother.

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A turbulent destiny until the end
And even then, despite the insistence of McConaughey and the director Jean-Marc Valléeengaged on the project in 2011, Dallas Buyers Club continues to face a series of obstacles. In the summer of 2012, a group of Canadian investors withdrew after wanting to finance the film. The actor then tried a huge gamble: he began to lose weight to prepare for his role and to talk about it in the media, even though the film was not yet financed and guaranteed to exist.

The salvation of Dallas Buyers Club will ultimately come from a fertilizer company in the Houston area, where one of McConaughey’s agents’ acquaintances worked, and whose financial partners wanted to get into the financing of feature films!

While Vallée hoped to shoot in 40 days for a budget of $8 million, he ultimately only had 25 days and $5 million at his disposal at the start of filming. And the casting of the supporting actors is also more complicated than expected: Gael Garcia Bernalwho was to play the role of Rayon, withdrew, and was finally replaced by Jared Leto. As for that of Doctor Eve Saks, it is initially offered to Noomi Rapace beforeHilary Swank does not commit… only to finally withdraw a few weeks later. It is finally Jennifer Garner who will inherit the role.

At the end of a grueling and lightning-fast shoot, for which Matthew McConaughey lost 21 kilos and Jared Leto 14, Dallas Buyers Club is finally in the box in 2013.

What followed was an acclaimed presentation at the Toronto festival, more than 70 various awards, six Oscar nominations (including a well-deserved one for Craig Borten And Melisa Wallack) and three statuettes: one for McConaughey and Leto of course, but also for best makeup for the heroic Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews. The latter had in fact had to carry out his task on the set with a paltry budget of barely… 250 dollars. Another great story for a film that didn’t lack one.

The summary of the film: 1986, Dallas, Texas, a true story. Ron Woodroof is 35 years old, boots, a Stetson, he’s a cowboy, a real one. His life: sex, drugs and rodeo. Everything changes when, diagnosed with HIV, he has 30 days to live. Revolted by the impotence of the medical profession, he resorted to unofficial alternative treatments. Over time, he brought together other sick people in search of healing: the Dallas Buyers Club was born. But his success hinders, Ron must engage in a battle against the laboratories and the federal authorities. It’s his fight for a new cause… and for his own life.

For its 10th anniversary, Dallas Buyers Club is to (re)see on Première Max. Here is its trailer:

Jared Leto lost his Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club