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Imagine strangers dropping by to smoke weed in your yard, throw a pizza on your roof or pose on your porch with a pumpkin. That’s the reality for the residents of houses appearing in the movie comedy “Friday,” the AMC series “Breaking Bad” and the horror classic “Halloween.” These and other scenarios are explored in a new documentary called “The House From …”
Narrated by Jason Lee, whose pop culture credentials include the sitcom “My Name Is Earl” and several Kevin Smith movies, “The House From …” dramatizes the magnetic attraction of famous houses and the invigorating or enraging effect their popularity has on residents and neighbors. The documentary makes its debut on Friday at the SModcastle Film Festival, in Atlantic Highlands, N.J., an event hosted by Mr. Smith.
Tommy Avallone, 41, the film’s director and co-writer, knows a thing or two about fandom, having previously produced a documentary about “Ghostbusters” and directed one on Bill Murray. He spoke to The Times about how real estate in the real world can serve as a touch point for the movies and television shows we grow up loving.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What inspired this documentary?
My wife and I at one point lived in Los Angeles, and when we first moved there, we’re, like, “Wait, we live 10 minutes from the ‘Wonder Years’ house? And we can drive to the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ house? That’s crazy.”
Visiting famous houses from pop culture was always a thing I did. If I was in Chicago, I’d go to the ‘Home Alone’ house, regardless. This project gave me an excuse to be able to actually talk to the owners and go inside. I’ve gotten to pee inside the “Full House” house, in San Francisco, which is a goal I never thought I had.
I think it’s an admirable goal. How did you get the film off the ground?
We tried to pitch it as a TV show, and no one wanted it. They thought there wasn’t enough drama. So I was, like, “Well, I’ll just make it myself, and I’ll turn it into a documentary.” And it was tough. During the pandemic, no one wanted you in their house. But I would write them letters.
How many responded?
I’d say a good handful. The ones I definitely wanted.
And the ones that got away …?
“The Sopranos” house — I became friendly with that owner, but he just wanted to remain private. I would have loved to have gone to the “Boy Meets World” house, or the “Wonder Years” house, or the “Nightmare on Elm Street” house, but I could never connect with the owners.
Were you surprised by the entitlement some fans showed about trespassing on private property?
That was the interesting relationship we loved to explore. For millions of people, this was a house from their favorite movie or TV show. But for Bill Young, who owns the “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” house, in South Pasadena, Calif., that’s his childhood home. And I think there is a big gap between someone showing up to take a picture outside versus people who do not respect any boundaries and who start opening up windows or shoving their eyes right up to the glass. I think some people just don’t comprehend that real people live there.
That lack of awareness may explain why some owners said they received letters addressed to the fictional characters associated with these places.
Especially the TV show houses, right? You’re watching this show on a weekly basis. You subliminally have this relationship that feels homelike. So when you see the “Golden Girls” house in real life, it just makes you feel at home.
The “Golden Girls” house is supposed to be in Miami, but the exterior filmed for the show is in Los Angeles. What about it attracted location scouts?
The original owners planted tropical flowers from Hawaii. When people were scouting, they loved the look of the outside because it did look like Florida, even though it’s in Brentwood and, like, 15 minutes away from the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” house. After the owners died, the house was sold for $4 million, and now it has a fence around it. Understandably so. But the woman who lived there before, she was a golden girl herself, a nice older lady who enjoyed the occasional stop-by. People would propose on her steps.
Didn’t you feel just a tiny bit sympathetic to the woman in Albuquerque who owns Walter White’s ranch house from “Breaking Bad” and is enraged by visitors to the point of screaming obscenities at them?
We tried to show things from her perspective. Here’s this woman who’s gotten pretty famous on TikTok for people going to her house and giving her a hard time. We’re showing this isn’t good. She didn’t ask for that.
She also seemed to suffer from comparison with the very nice former owner of Jesse’s house from “Breaking Bad.”
A lot depends on the popularity of your house. We didn’t show this in the film, but the owners of the “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” house on the North Shore of Chicago said, “We love our fans.” Yeah, but they don’t get that many. Twenty minutes away is the “Home Alone” house, and it’s nonstop. At a certain level, it just becomes too much. The owner of the “Christmas Story” house, in Cleveland, made that point when he said, “Some of these houses just aren’t livable anymore, and then they have to be turned into some sort of museum.”
Which brings up the question of financial rewards. The woman who owned Jesse’s house said she was paid $2,000 a day for filming. There also seemed to be real profit for the couple with the house in Altadena, Calif., where at least a dozen TV series and movies were filmed, including “Can’t Hardly Wait,” “This Is Us,” “Cheaper by the Dozen” and “American Pie.”
That’s the house on Rubio Street.
Why has this one house gotten so lucky?
I guess film people are aware that the owners are very good to work with. And the house is very open inside; there’s a lot of room to move your cameras around and not have to be in tight corners. And there’s a big yard, so you can shoot a wide view of the house and not be in the street.
On a related note, why is the real estate in South Pasadena so attractive to filmmakers?
South Pasadena just looks like non-California, Middle America, Anywhere USA. But as I started writing down the street addresses of houses that I liked or was familiar with there, I kept seeing Bushnell, Bushnell, Bushnell. And I was, like, “Wait a minute, they’re all on the same block.”
The fact that Biff from “Back to the Future 2” kicks the ball up to the second floor of a house that ends up being Luke Wilson’s fraternity house from “Old School” is crazy. And it’s right next door to Lorraine’s house from the first “Back to the Future,” which is also the house in “Teen Wolf.”
Also in South Pasadena, Andie’s house from “Pretty in Pink” is directly around the corner from the Michael Myers house from “Halloween.” So you start playing around in your head: Does this mean Michael and Andie went to high school together?
Is there any kind of market benefit to having a famous house? As one real estate agent in the film pointed out, notoriety is not necessarily a great selling feature. For instance, Cameron’s house from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” which is in Highland Park, Ill., took six years to sell.
I do think people are seeing the money that can be made from famous houses. For example, the “Poltergeist” house in Simi Valley just sold and I believe they are turning it into an Airbnb.
Is there a message you wanted this film to convey?
With so many true crime documentaries now, it’s just fun to sit back and see a different perspective. No one dies in these houses.
But as the film points out, the houses themselves die because not everyone respects their cultural significance.
Yes, the “Family Matters” house, in Chicago, got knocked down. The original “Magnum P.I.” house, in Hawaii, got knocked down. But more people are now saving these relics. I grew up in Old City, Philadelphia, 15 minutes from the Liberty Bell. It really didn’t have any effect on me. But being in Burbank and knowing that, “Oh, wait, that’s where Fred Savage was when they were shooting ‘The Wonder Years.’” That’s my sort of history. We’ve lived with movies and television for so long that people who grew up watching it respond to these images and want to preserve them.
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