Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind the Making of “Boyz N The Hood”

Who’s Going to Direct It?

Singleton was still a student at USC when he finished Boyz  so he had to find a way to get his script into the right hands. And he did a little scheming to get it there. He pretended he was interested in a job with Columbia Pictures and set up an informational interview with new executive, Stephanie Allain and instead of talking about the position he claimed he was interested in, he gave her what would eventually become Boyz N The Hood. A black woman herself, Allain was deeply moved by the story and took it to the higher ups. But it wasn’t smooth sailing from there. The studio thought Singleton was too young to direct his film and they offered him $100,000 for the script. Luckily, he declined and threatened to take the project somewhere else.

This is what he had to say about it: ” They asked me if I would consider anybody else directing it?” Singleton replied, “Hell, no, I’m not gonna let somebody from Idaho or Encino direct a movie about living in south-central Los Angeles. They can’t come in here and cast it and go through the rewrites and know exactly what aesthetics are unique to this film.” Smart move.