Over the Edge is a 1979 American coming-of-age drama directed by Jonathan Kaplan and released in May 1979. The film, based on actual events, had a limited theatrical release but has since achieved cult film status. It was Matt Dillon‘s film debut.
The film was inspired by events described in a 1973 San Francisco Examiner article entitled “Mousepacks: Kids on a Crime Spree” by Bruce Koon and James A. Finefrock, which reported on young kids vandalizing property in Foster City, California.[2] The middle class planned community had an unusually high level of juvenile crime.[2][3] Screenwriters Charles S. Haas and Tim Hunter began work shortly after the article’s publication, including field research in the town itself where they interviewed some of the kids.[1] Hunter said that the script accurately reflected the article with the exception of a more violent ending.
Orion Pictures helped finance the film; producer George Litto borrowed an additional $1 million. Director Jonathan Kaplan, who was just 30 when hired, took a documentary approach to filming and hired unknown actors. Among them was Matt Dillon, then age 14, whom the filmmakers discovered in a middle school in Westchester County, New York. This was Dillon’s feature film debut.[4] Shooting took place over 20 days in 1978 in the Colorado cities of Aurora and Greeley.[2]