The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys first came to producer Jay Shapiro's attention in a roundabout way when the sister of one of his partners suggested he read the novel. From the moment he read the novel and began to try to set it up as a film, it almost seemed "blessed."

"The book is so charming, right off the bat. It's hysterically funny, you're laughing continuously throughout, but it's also very touching, moving, tragic -- addressing periods of your life that are probably the most complicated."

Shapiro soon learned that, sadly, the book's author, Chris Fuhrman, had died of cancer before the book was published. He then tried to track down the widow by calling information in Atlanta and Savannah, where the novel had been set and Furhman had lived. He eventually reached her through her father, and began a three-month campaign to obtain the rights.

Shapiro took the project to British-born Peter Care, director of commercials, documentaries
and music videos for bands such as R.E.M., Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, with whom he had worked on several projects. Care also fell in love with the material.

"What I found most compelling about the book is its mixture of honesty and poetry," he says. "It's got this great feeling of humanity about it. The story is quite dark and some of it is satirical, sort of sick humor. But it also has this lyricism that I thought offered a great balance."

Shapiro and Care then approached Trilogy Entertainment Group, the company headed by John Watson, Pen Densham and Guy McElwaine and responsible for such films as "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" and "Backdraft." Watson in particular was enthusiastic about the project, and the company agreed to executive produce the film. Screenwriter Michael Petroni was brought in to complete the first draft.

When Petroni took a meeting with Egg Pictures to discuss another project, producers Meg LeFauve and Jodie Foster asked what else he was working on. He told them about "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys," and, intrigued, Foster and LeFauve set out to find out more. They met with Care and Shapiro and became equally passionate about the project.

"In all the films we make what guides our vision, in some ways, is that we look to do things that are kind of hard, that require a really personal touch," says Foster. "So that means we might do less films than most people. And I think the films we do usually have a lot to do with our own lives."

Foster has great respect for Care, a first-time feature director. "We didn't choose Peter, he chose us," she adds. "He was involved in the project before we were and he's always been a great choice for this film. With all the first-time directors I've ever worked with, I've never worked with anyone who was as prepared to be a director. He's been doing commercials for years, and of course documentaries and music videos. He's someone who understands the camera, understands editing, but also has a really good sense of the actor and of the characters. He's always been the creative voice of the film."

Graham King of Initial Entertainment Group agreed to finance the film after meeting to discuss the project. Says LeFauve: "His attitude towards us is that 'you are the filmmakers. I am the financier.' He trusts us to make the film. Which is great. It's also very smart of him because it puts all the responsibility right back in our lap. So every decision you think about carefully. It really has been an incredible experience to work with IEG."

In "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys," Tim and Francis escape the mind-numbing drudgery of their lives through the fantasy world of the superhero comic strip they create in which their alteregos do battle with evil versions of Sister Assumpta and Father Casey. One of the difficulties in adapting the book was how to dramatise this rich internal life of the boys. After considering and rejecting standard movie devices such as voice-over narration, the filmmakers hit upon the idea of animation.

"The animation was something that Peter Care and I evolved over the course of time," says Shapiro. "The book is mainly from Francis' point of view and in Francis' head. The trick was to try to tell a story and make it unique. And since the boys are comic book artists, animation seemed like a natural way to be going in and out of this world and use that as the thread that ties everything together."

The second screenwriter for the script, Jeff Stockwell, was brought in to develop the story of the boys and originate the animation storyline. The producers then sought out the best man for the job of bringing Francis' interior world to life, Grammy- and two-time Emmy-winning Producer/Director Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn. McFarlane's world of dark, brooding creatures is stylistically dead-on for the subversive world the boys create. No one involved with the film knew him personally, so Jay Shapiro cold-called him. After one phone call, McFarlane signed on to create the animated sequences.

"We're portraying the reality of a boy who sees images in his head that are influenced by comics," says Care. "And what he is seeing is these crazy visions that Todd McFarlane is going to create for us. We're keeping the animation in a very separate world from the live action on purpose. We're not having any kind of transitional moments that you've seen before where drawings come to life. We're making it so it's pure fantasy and then we can let Todd just go wherever he wants with it. We're giving him an outline for a story, but within each sequence we're obviously letting him have a big influence in what's happening."

McFarlane is actually creating the animation while the live-action scenes are being filmed. He describes the style he will be using: "I found that if you do two layers of colours and you add black-- which is sort of like a third colour -- it cements these characters and makes them very stylistic. And we'll see if we can do that with some exciting quick cutting as well as some big moments of music and special effects. And we'll create a rhythm to it that's consistent so that they'll go, "Wow, cool, that sure as hell wasn't Disney."

Care has a vision for how the live action and animated sequences will work together, with each animated section mirroring the emotional lives of the characters. "In the live action, Francis goes on a journey which is psychological, an emotional journey," says Care. "And the animation is a physical journey. It's a classic Greek legend, or myth. The hero goes into the labyrinth, gets the prize, and then has to fight his way out of the labyrinth again. We're going to do a very fun kind of crazy Todd McFarlane version of that legend. But it matches the emotional cadences of the story for Francis."

To help blend the live action with the animation, Care shot multiple scenes using wide-angle lenses and a moving camera, something he admits he would not normally do. In addition, he plans to use hard-edged editing to jump from one world to another, something he feels that young audiences today much more readily accept. "You know, this isn't a smooth film, and I don't see the need to make it smooth. I think the edginess will be good for the movie, make it more provocative. If you have these moments of interruption, if we get it right, it will be incredibly strong and exciting."

Although Fuhrman's novel was set in Savannah, Georgia in the 1970s, the filmmakers steered clear of mooring the material in any too specific time or place. The filmmakers looked at shooting the film in Savannah, but found the city, with its charming squares and old gardens, was too easily identified. They wanted to go for a more universal look. Eventually they ended up filming in Charleston, South Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina.

"We're setting the film in North Carolina in the seventies," says Care. "We wanted to be accurate, but we're not paying homage to the seventies. This isn't a movie about bellbottoms. We're avoiding all those cliches I think, quite proudly. I think if it were set in the present day it would still be a wonderful story, but these kids would be e-mailing each other. They wouldn't be bicycling around and stealing statues. They'd be doing something else to screw up Assumpta. The fact that it's all quite innocent in a strange way is really good for the movie I think."

"There are parts of the novel that are autobiographical, but it is not actually supposed to be Chris Fuhrman's life," says LeFauve. "We're accenting the seventies, not necessarily trying to define a place or region. There was this very big debate about whether or not the characters should speak with distinct Southern accents." To keep the universal feeling going in the film, the producers ultimately decided they should not.

The common thread the filmmakers and actors found most appealing in "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" was its honesty and truth to the lives of adolescents.

"I guess what I look for in films is truth," says Foster. "What's true and what's real. And those are the questions that I ask. And this film is really true to what happens when you are 13 or 14 or 15 from that time in your life when you don't have all the answers and you don't know what you're going through. And you don't know if you'll ever get to the other side so everything feels like the hardest, most difficult, most painful, most joyous process as well. That time of discovery. I'd never want to live through it again. So we want to make sure that we capture that perspective."

"Really, for me, it's about a boy's search for truth," says Care. "It's about being faced by the reality of life and how he gets through that. And it's about humanity, and how Francis has a great compassion for everybody in this movie. In the end, he has compassion for the bad guy, for Jodie's character, too. And to me that's what it's about. It's like saying you have to look into everyone, you can't just say this is a black-and-white world. You learn nothing from that. When you can see all the different colors of the world I think you have a better way of getting through life."

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