Bugeater Films, the production arm of Slamdance Film Festival co-founder Dan Mirvish, has announced that its real estate musical feature film OPEN HOUSE will be released on DVD on November 15 through Wellspring Media.
Among the cast, OPEN HOUSE stars Anthony Rapp, who also stars in Sony’s big screen version of RENT, which is slated for release on November 23. In OPEN HOUSE, Rapp plays the critically-acclaimed role of an off-kilter real estate agent. In contrast to RENT and most other musicals, Anthony and all the other actors in OPEN HOUSE sang live, with no lip-syncing or dubbing. “Or as I like to say,” said Mirvish, “If you want to see Anthony Rapp in a real estate musical, why Rent, when you can own…Open House!”
Mirvish garnered world-wide headlines for OPEN HOUSE last year when he spearheaded an Oscar campaign (joined by Miramax, Paramount and Disney) to reignite the Academy’s dormant Best Original Musical category. “We had a film that was made for less than the price of an Oscar gift bag,” said Mirvish. “But the Academy literally rewrote the rules of the Oscars because of us.” On top of its Oscar-qualifying run last year in Los Angeles, OPEN HOUSE screened in over a dozen international film festivals and had a limited theatrical run.
In addition to Anthony, OPEN HOUSE also stars Oscar-nominee Sally Kellerman (MASH), Kellie Martin (ER), Jerry Doyle (Babylon5), James Duval (Donnie Darko) and Ann Magnuson in a madcap musical that follows a group of real-estate hungry homebuyers and agents as they search for stolen jewels, lost love and the perfect 2-story Spanish colonial in the film that Venice Magazine called “the first great musical of independent film – it’s fantabulous!” Mirvish added, “There are three things that Americans like today: sex, real estate and musicals. OPEN HOUSE has all three.”
Mirvish noted that the film has sparked a trend in young couples having sex in open houses. “The film itself has a fairly tame PG-13 sensibility, but what people do after they see the movie, well that’s another matter.”
Unique highlights of the OPEN HOUSE DVD are the first ever “Musical Commentary” featuring the new song, “This is the DVD Commentary!” (with lyrics like, “Your patience will be bulging, to keep up with our self-indulging.”) as well as an audio option to watch the film along with the Park City festival audience (patent-pending “Slamdance-arama” audio). There is close to an hour of “film school in a box” how-to featurettes on the DVD, ranging from how to cast, shoot and direct a low-budget musical, to a step-by-step guide to creating your own Oscar category, and even how to make fingersandwiches featuring a conversation between Sally Kellerman and former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. The DVD also features sing-a-long subtitles for all the songs.
For more info, visit the “Open House” website.
