Production
Big Money Hustlas was inspired by the video Big Ballers. Insane Clown Posse and Twiztid had seen the movie and loved the video's low-budget comedy style. Using the ideas that he, Joseph Utsler, James Spaniolo, and Paul Methric created, Joseph Bruce wrote the entire script himself in one month. Island Records gave him $250,000 to produce the film.
Big Money Hustlas was shot in New York. Most of the stage crew disliked the movie and the cast. They went on strike twice, while only a few crew members continued to work. The movie was shot in two months, but went way over budget. Halfway through the movie, Bruce had to pay $100,000 of his own money to continue filming. Island never paid the crew for the last two weeks of work due to the film going so far over budget.
The movie features many friends of Insane Clown Posse. Mick Foley was brought in as his "Cactus Sac" persona that the duo has used in their Strangle-Mania videos. Robert Bruce, Joseph Bruce's brother, also appears in the movie in multiple personas which include The Preacher, Hack Benjamin, and an officer. Harland Williams appeared at the request of Joseph Bruce, who was grateful and impressed that Williams, who had appeared in major studio productions such as Half Baked and There's Something About Mary, would be willing to appear in a low-budget independent film like Big Money Hustlas. John G. Brennan and Kamal Ahmed of The Jerky Boys appeared separately, because they were unable to get along with each other during the filming.
In contrast with the members of the production who received the movie negatively, Bruce gave bonuses to some cast and crew, including Foley, Rudy Ray Moore, and Williams. Even though Jerry Only only appeared in a small cameo with his band The Misfits, he stuck around for the entire shoot. Jerry Only's son plays the altar boy in the opening scene.
In addition to playing Hack Benjamin, Jumpsteady also plays several background characters. Violent J also appeared in a gorilla costume as "Ape Boy"; Jamie Madrox recorded a dub for the character's voice. Although a production company was paid $8,000 to replace the original audio with the dub, they told the director that they were unable to do it, and a decision was made to instead keep the original audio track, with Violent J's voice.
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Famous quotes containing the word production:
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The society based on production is only productive, not creative.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)