Because finding a home should be something to sing about.
Slamdance's Mirvish welcomes business with Brothers
WEINSTEINS TAKE OVER 'OPEN HOUSE' RELEASE
Culver City - Slamdance Co-Founder Dan Mirvish announced today that he welcomed news of The Weinstein Company's pending deal with Genius Products and Wellspring Media, the current distributors for Mirvish's real estate musical, OPEN HOUSE (starring Anthony Rapp, from RENT). "This is great news for all of us," said Mirvish. "I've looked forward to working more with Harvey and Bob for years, and I suspect that feeling was mutual. I'm sure when they heard about the success of OPEN HOUSE, they figured they needed to be in business with us and our distributor."
Wellspring and Genius released the DVD of OPEN HOUSE on November 15, and due to popular demand, once again as a "One Week Anniversary" edition on November 22. In a massive promotional blitz,, there have been over half a million "Open House" signs planted on streetcorners and front yards throughout North America. "As the ultimate grassroots promotion, this campaign has clearly been driving sales," said Mirvish. "Amazon sold out of all copies last week, and many Best Buys have also sold out. It'll be great working with the Weinsteins on another rerelease of the film in early spring. It's also clear that all the fans of RENT have been clamoring to see Anthony Rapp in more real estate musicals like ours." [Click for hi-res stills of Anthony at last week's OPEN HOUSE release party.]
"We worked very closely with the Weinstein's old version of Miramax last year when we did our Oscar campaign to reignite the Best Original Musical," added Mirvish, who spearheaded the controversial campaign that literally rewrote the rules of the Academy Awards. "So I'm eager to work with them again." Details of that campaign are chronicled on one of the DVD's extra features.
In addition to Rapp, OPEN HOUSE also stars Oscar®-nominee Sally Kellerman (MASH), Kellie Martin (ER), Jerry Doyle (Babylon5), James Duval (Donnie Darko), Jenna Leigh Green (Wicked), Robert Peters (Ocean's 11), Ann Magnuson (Panic Room), and Ian Whitcomb (Cat's Meow) 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 Film Threat called, "A funny, fast-paced and above all very unique film."
Unique highlights of the OPEN HOUSE DVD are the first ever "Musical Commentary" featuring the new song, "This is the DVD Commentary!" as well as an audio option to watch the film along with the Park City festival audience (patent-pending "Slamdance-a-Rama" audio). Numerous more extras include step-by-step guide to creating your own Oscar® category, and sing-a-long lyrics.
For more info or to receive a screening copy of the DVD, call Bugeater Films at 310-839-2569 or contact Wellspring's publicists, Jill Goldstein and Maggie Cortes at JGoldsteinPR at 212-463-7300. For more info on the film - including DVD extras details, hi-res stills, production notes, etc. - go to: http://www.OpenHouseMovie.com and for a video podcast with web exclusive clips, go to iTunes.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - November 18, 2005
RENT's Rapp in another real estate musical...
OPEN HOUSE announces special "One Week Anniversary" DVD
Culver City - Bugeater Films confirmed today that due to popular demand, next week Wellspring Media is releasing a special "One Week Anniversary" DVD edition of Dan Mirvish's real estate musical film, OPEN HOUSE, starring Anthony Rapp. Rapp also stars in Sony's big screen version of RENT that opens one day later on November 23rd. In a massive promotional blitz this weekend, there will be over half a million "Open House" signs planted on streetcorners and front yards throughout North America. "It's the ultimate grassroots promotion," said Mirvish. "People will not be able to avoid seeing a sign with our film's name on it."
"The response to this past week's version of the film was simply overwhelming," said OPEN HOUSE director Dan Mirvish. "I was getting calls from all over the country from fans who said the disc was sold-out or unavailable. Thankfully, the folks over at Wellspring sprung into action to get this new One Week Anniversary issue out to the stores and to the public."
"With the successful anniversary releases last week of such classic movie musicals as STATE FAIR, OKLAHOMA and SOUND OF MUSIC which are a combined 150 years old, it became clear to us that to generate even more interest in OPEN HOUSE we, too, needed to issue an anniversary release of the DVD," said Mirvish. "And unlike those other films, why not do it while the cast and crew are still breathing?" As movie musicals go, OPEN HOUSE is a rarity in that it was not based on a stageplay, and all the actors sang live on set, with no lip-syncing. The Academy Awards® rewrote their rules last year after Mirvish spearheaded a campaign to reignite the dormant Oscar® for Best Original Musical.
While it is simply coincidental that OPEN HOUSE will now be coming out just a day before the RENT theatrical release, Rapp compares working on both films on the OPEN HOUSE commentary, "It was one of those times when I was really grateful to sing live in person rather than lipsyncing, although doing RENT, I got used to the lipsyncing thing." OPEN HOUSE was made for about $20,000, which is several million less than what Sony spent on RENT. "We're hoping all the RENT fans watch copies of OPEN HOUSE on their portable DVD players while they're waiting in line for RENT," said Mirvish. "It'll be a good way to tune up with Anthony before seeing him on the big screen!"
In addition to Rapp, 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 Film Threat called, "A funny, fast-paced and above all very unique film."
Unique highlights of the OPEN HOUSE DVD are the first ever "Musical Commentary" featuring the new song, "This is the DVD Commentary!" as well as an audio option to watch the film along with the Park City festival audience (patent-pending "Slamdance-arama" audio). Numerous more extras include step-by-step guide to creating your own Oscar® category, and sing-a-long lyrics.
For more info or to receive a screening copy of the DVD, contact Bugeater Films at bugeater@slamdance.com. For more info on the film - including DVD extras details, hi-res stills, production notes, etc. - go to: http://www.OpenHouseMovie.com and for a video podcast with web exclusive clips, go to iTunes.
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Old Press Releases
Dan Mirvish
c/o Bugeater Films
4252 Mentone Ave.
Culver City, CA 90232
ph: 310-839-2569
email: bugeater@slamdance.com
