From Stage To Screen, Rent Endures

"Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road. No other way. No day but today."

The critically-acclaimed musical Rent, the film adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning rock opera directed by Chris Columbus (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone), tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to express themselves through their art and "measuring their lives in love". Against the gritty backdrop of New York’s East Village, these friends strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.

Rent’s diverse and unconven-tional community is made up of impassioned and defiant individuals. Roger (Adam Pascal) is an aspiring songwriter who has emotionally shut down after his girlfriend’s suicide. Despite his attraction, he is reluctant to start a new romance with his downstairs neighbor Mimi Marquez (Rosario Dawson), an exotic dancer struggling with "baggage of her own." Roger’s roommate Mark (Anthony Rapp) is a filmmaker trying to balance art and commerce. His girlfriend Maureen (Idina Menzel), a self-indulgent performance artist, recently left him for a lawyer named Joanne (Tracie Thomas).

Also part of this close-knit circle is Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin), a professor of philosophy who, after being mugged, is rescued by his soul mate, a high-spirited, street drummer, Angel Shunard (Wilson Jermaine Heredia). Benny, (Taye Diggs), who alienated his friends after he married their landlord’s daughter, has reneged on his promise to provide rent-free artist space to his bohemian friends. Once a close friend, he is now viewed as the enemy, threatening them with eviction.

Inspired by Puccini’s classic opera "La Boheme," Rent won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Obie Award, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, four Tony Awards and three Drama Desk awards–all following the tragic, untimely death of its creator, Jonathan Larson, who passed away of an aortic aneurysm on the eve of the play’s first preview. The play went on to become a phenomenal success–launching the careers of its stars and bringing a sense of excitement back to Broadway by introducing a young and eager audience to a musical theater work that carried with it a message of hope and love.

After seeing Rent soon after it opened on Broadway, director Chris Columbus was so inspired, he immediately corralled his 1492 Pictures partners Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe into seeing the musical as well. They reacted with similar enthusiasm. It wasn’t only Jonathan Larson’s wonderful music and lyrics that captured their attention, but the powerful and honest way in which it dealt with crucial contemporary life issues.

Says Radcliffe: "The show tackled two significant life questions we all share: First, ‘What am I going to do with my life’ and secondly, ‘Who am I going to spend it with?’" In addition, Radcliffe continues, "You add the complication of having a limited time to live. How will you deal with that as well?"

The moment Columbus, Radcliffe and Barnathan left the theater, all they could talk about was "how great it would be to do a movie with the kind of energy, power and emotional immediacy of the show we had just seen on stage," recalls producer Barnathan.

"To me Rent was about dealing with emotion, about confronting the feeling of falling in love for the first time," says Columbus, "and regardless of some of its darker aspects, it was ultimately about hope, about understanding that each day is important and you need to live each day to its fullest."

Bringing Rent to the screen became the filmmakers’ passion and, for several years, they tried to obtain the rights to the project, which had been optioned by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro, who run Tribeca Productions. Finally, in 2004, they were able to partner with Tribeca and secure financing for the project. "I was on the phone with Chris giving him the news that our funding had fallen through," says Barnathan. "(Revolution Studios’ founder) Joe Roth overheard my conversation, turned around and said, ‘If you’re talking about Rent, I’ll finance the movie.’ We had a deal within a week."

When Rosenthal learned that Revolution Studios had agreed to provide the funding for Rent, she was overjoyed. "Bob (De Niro) and I had spent almost a decade trying to bring this project to the screen," says Rosenthal. "We were thrilled to hear that Chris and 1492 were able to secure the financing and finally make this labor of love a reality."

Though, according to Columbus, it may not be apparent from his previous films, he has a close affinity to the story of Rent. "I lived in New York for 17 years in the 1980s when Rent takes place. I lived in a loft and had a lot of those experiences. We were dirt poor and we lived in a loft on 26th Street in Manhattan for three years," he says. "I could relate to exactly what the characters of Mark (Anthony Rapp) and Roger (Adam Pascal) were going through. I knew those people. So for me, it was an opportunity to go back to a very important time in my life and to bring my own experiences to that part of it. I was concerned about someone else doing it who didn’t have that experience and hadn’t lived in that world. For me it was extremely important not to homogenize any of the elements of the play. I wanted the film to be, in a sense, even grittier because film enables you to be a lot more realistic."

Rent will be shown starting March 29 exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas.