The 61 mil. CZK (2.34 million euros) film was produced by the Prague based production-distribution company Pragofilm (www.pragofilm.cz) in co-production with TV NOVA, SPI and UPI, and distributed by Falcon. Daffodils & Tough Guys tell the story of a group of high school professors and students 25 years later who meet by chance at the same winter mountain resort on the Czech-Polish border. The older gang meet with a trio of young boys whose greatest skill is picking up women, providing a younger generation's look at their parents' world. The script was written by Radek John and Ivo Pelant who authored the original 1982 film, and reunites the original cast, with a cameo from Czech Olympic winner Katerina Neumannova.
Pre-production was hampered by disputes over copyright and the need to replace Smyczek, who was committed to directing a TV series. The producers finally settled on Taus, known as a director of commercials and for his 1999 film on drug addiction, The Canary.
Shooting of Daffodils & Tough Guys began in February, 2008, more than 2 years after the sequel was announced. Uncooperative weather and restrictions by the national park authorities interrupted filming, and the final shoot took place in June on artificial snow and temperatures of 30 degrees C. Growing debts ruled out an emergency filming shoot in Norway and the opening of the film was postponed from October to December.
"It was probably the most haunted, most misadventurous movie of last years," Pragofilm producer Dana Volákova said. "We made a serious try to make a really interesting family film, for both parents and children," she added. Ambitions of Pragofilm to release the film were cooled by reality. "We wanted to release the film ourselves," producer Jaroslav Nietsch from Pragofilm told FNE. "But this film seemed to us to be too special so we decided for a known distribution company." Why special? "Winter films made on snow are really rare in Czech," Nietsch said. "They are hard to make. We are happy to succeed after are all the hardship experience."
