Patriots Day

On April 15, 2013, two bombs exploded near the Boston Marathon finish line on Boylston Street. Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu and eight-year-old Martin Richard were killed, and more than 260 people were injured. In the days that followed, the two brothers responsible killed MIT police officer Sean Collier before a manhunt that ended in Watertown.

Patriots Day tells those days as a feature film, not a documentary: it rebuilds real events with actors, folds several people's experiences into one character, and adds scenes that did not happen exactly as shown.

CBS Films announced Patriots Day on March 31, 2015, built on the life rights of former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and research by 60 Minutes. At the same time, 20th Century Fox was developing a rival project, Boston Strong, based on the book by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge.

In November 2015, Mark Wahlberg and CBS Films bought the Boston Strong rights from Fox and merged the two. The final screenplay is credited to Peter Berg, Matt Cook and Joshua Zetumer, with story credit shared by Berg, Cook, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. Stronger, the film about survivor Jeff Bauman, went ahead separately.

Filming began on March 29, 2016, and ran about 50 days, through an April snowstorm and May rain. The Boston Globe logged locations in Boston, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, Quincy, Malden, Framingham, Woburn, Rockland, Newton, Somerville, Watertown and the MIT campus in Cambridge. Wahlberg, the film's producer and star, was born and raised in Dorchester.

The finish line wasn't filmed where it happened: the crew built a replica of Boylston Street at the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station. The capture was shot in Framingham with a replica of the boat. MIT allowed three days of filming in June — only peaceful scenes of Collier — after consulting his family; UMass Dartmouth declined to host filming, and Berg deferred to objections from Watertown officials.

Most of the characters are real people: Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman), FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon), Watertown Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese (J.K. Simmons), Officer Sean Collier (Jake Picking), Dun Meng, the driver the brothers carjacked (Jimmy O. Yang), and survivors Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes (Rachel Brosnahan and Christopher O'Shea).

The lead is not. Sgt. Tommy Saunders, Wahlberg's character, is a composite of several Boston officers who were at the finish line, which is why he turns up at every key moment. His wife, Carol (Michelle Monaghan), has no documented real-life counterpart.

The film closes with interviews with real survivors, Kensky and Downes among them. Dun Meng and David Henneberry appear as themselves in brief cameos, as does David Ortiz. Martin Richard's family asked not to be portrayed, and the filmmakers honored that request. Before release, private screenings were held in Boston for law enforcement and the victims' families.

Patriots Day closed AFI Fest on November 17, 2016, at Hollywood's TCL Chinese Theatre and screened in Boston on December 14 at the Wang Theatre. Lionsgate opened it in limited release on December 21 and nationwide on January 13, 2017. CBS Films and Lionsgate co-financed it on a $45 million budget; it grossed $52.2 million worldwide.

Former Commissioner Ed Davis said the filmmakers got it right. For Jessica Kensky, the team treated victims with respect, though whether the film got it right was an impossible question for a survivor. Patrick Downes told WBUR that against hate planned for weeks, “love responded in an instant.” Boston critics were split: the Globe's Ty Burr found it unnecessary, while other reviews were positive.

The National Board of Review named it one of 2016's top films and gave its Spotlight Award to the collaboration of Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg. It arrived on digital on March 14, 2017, and on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD on March 28.