November 22, 2004
Some Of 'Rent' Will Be Filmed In NYC; Quality Not Assured
From Revolution Studios, the studio producing Rent, the studio behind classics like Tomcats, the Master of Disguise, and and the upcoming Christmas with the Kranks whose previews make our teeth hurt, a letter to Gothamist about the movie version of Rent being filmed in San Francisco's manmade island:
We saw your recent story on the Gothamist website about the film version of Rent, and we wanted to take the opportunity to clarify a few points that were made.Gothamist appreciates the time Revolution Studios took to contact us, and we're very happy that the East Village will be clogged with production trucks and craft service tables (we're thinking Avenue D, since Avenues A, B, and C are considerably less gritty). But Gothamist still stands by our thoughts that the film will suck and echo Out of Focus' sentiment (who also wrote about Rent filming in SF and was contacted by Revolution Studios) that if you can only get the movie version of Rent made by getting free soundstages, then, by God, the movie will suck.
While you state that Rent is to be filmed in San Francisco, in fact all exterior shots for the film are to be filmed in New York City. The Treasure Island location in San Francisco is where the soundstages and interior sets are to be located.
The film will remain true to the original story of Rent and will be set in New York's East Village. The city of San Francisco gave Chris Columbus the Treasure Island stages for free, and this enormous financial help from the city of San Francisco was the difference being able to get the picture made. Chris Columbus is fully aware of the importance of the East Village location in the story, and will be filming all of the exterior shots for the film on location in New York City.
Yahoo Movies still lists the film as being attached with Spike Lee. Now that would have been fierce, though we don't know if that would have been good either. And to its credit, Revolution produced Black Hawk Down, Punch Drunk Love, and...and...
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as i said to jen last week, i predict the film will suck in the exact same percentage that it was shot outside new york. so if it was made 85% in SF, then it will be about 15% good. take that, SFist!
I wholeheartedly agree. Everyone knows that the Urban Bohemian was invented by Manhattan - how on earth would San Franciscans know what struggling young artists look like?
Besides, The characters of Rent have their heads so far up their own asses about being New Yorkers, anything shot outside of Teh NYCxorz will have an air of totally inauthentic modesty. Ha ha! I kid because I love.
Affectionately,
SFist MattyMatt.
I'd like to point out that I lived in the 'real' East Village when Rent was on its Broadway run, and everyone I knew (who wasn't a musical theater major) considered it a smarmy piece of drivel to begin with. I think fellow NYU alum (and East Village resident) Chris Columbus brings the perfect clown-with-a-tear-dripping-down-on-velvet aesthetic to the project. I thought that The City offering the soundstages for near-free in order to get local filmmakers working would resonate with y'all, but apparently getting all nostalgic over the AIDS epidemic and the early days of now complete East Village gentrification is the order of the day.
Panties in a bunch,
SFist Jackson
Please don't give San Francisco a bad name by trying to argue that Chris Columbus directing this film is in any way a good thing. As a native San Franciscan now living in New York, I consider it exactly the same as if someone wanted to do a biopic on the Dead or a film about the origins of Rolling Stone magazine and shoot in in New York. Sure, The Haight doesn't look anything like it did in 1967, but there's a principal and uniqueness that still exists to SAn Francisco. I don't care how popular a club Fillmore East was -- a story about Bill Graham should first and foremost focus on the Fillmore West. Even so, Chris Columbus could travel back in time, shoot the whole thing in grungy, grimy, run-down, pre-gentrified East Village Manhattan with real junkies as extras and he'd still likely ruin it.
And dammit, I hate being this much of a RENT defender. The show isn't even THAT amazing. It's good, and someone should try to make a good adaptation, but that's about it.
"Everyone knows that the Urban Bohemian was invented by Manhattan." Huh? Maybe you've heard of La Boheme, the little opera that Rent is based on? It's amazing how the bohemians of La Boheme could pull off being bohemian without living in Manhattan. Oh well, we'll always have Paris.
(It is true, though, that anything made by Chris Columbus can't help but be a big heaping plateful of ass.)
I'm certainly not arguing for Chris Columbus on this project - I think Rent and Columbus deserve each other. I think the fact that the studio chose a soundstage in San Francisco is simply irrelevant. If NYC had offered free soundstages, they probably would have filmed the sets in NYC - or Topeka, Kansas, for that matter. Harsh on Columbus all you want, but there's a bunch of poor PAs out here who don't want to move to LA but want to work in film, and I don't think they deserve any parochial snark from Rent fans.
Panties slowly unbunching, but still a tad bunched,
SFist Jackson