My chat with Doug Spearman whose film “Hot Guys With Guns” screens at Outfest tonight!

Tonight is a big night for Doug Spearman.

Hot Guys With Guns, a film he wrote and directed and got made through sheer force of will, screens at Outfest tonight at the outdoor Ford Ampitheatre and it is already nearly sold out. (Get tickets at Outfest.org)

I’m so excited for Doug because he’s a friend of mine and I know how hard he has worked to make this happen.

“It’s amazing to be here,” Doug says. “I love Outfest and and am a huge supporter. The script was actually developing through the (Outfest) writers lab in 2009 and now we’re here.”

So what can tonight’s crowd at the Ford expect to see on the screen?

“You are going to see something that is a lot like Lethal Weapon if Danny Glover and Mel Gibson were ex-boyfriends,” Doug says. “We really did a movie that is both hysterically funny but deals with a very serious subject and is probably the first gay action comedy thriller anyone’s ever made. We wanted to do something that wasn’t just somebody’s tender coming out story. We wanted to do a movie to go and laugh and just eat popcorn and go on a ride – Hot Guys With Guns is a ride.”

The man knows how to sell a movie!

Some background: Best known for his role as Chance in the Noah’s Arc TV series and feature film, Doug had spent years developing this project as a starring vehicle for himself. He says he felt he had gotten a bit too old to play one of the leads so he hired Marc Anthony Samuel and Brian McArdle to lead a cast that also includes Darryl Stephens, Trey McCurley, Leon Acord, John Ainsworth and Gregory Zarian among others.

But before he got that cast together and got the movie off the ground through crowd-sourcing, Doug had seen the script gathering dust for a few years as he was busy acting and working behind the scenes in television.

Then, he got a kick in the pants.

“The reason that I did Hot Guys With Guns is because I saw my friend David Ross‘ movie I Do last year at the Ford during Outfest. And I said, ‘Oh my God, we were writing our movies at the same time and his is on the screen and mine is on the corner of my desk.’ I said, ‘Screw it, I’m quitting my job and I’m going to do whatever it takes, I’m going to do whatever he did and I’m going to make this movie.”

Not only did he make the movie, but it has been welcomed with open arms by the film festival circuit and there are plans for a special theatrical run then DVD release.

The film premiered in Miami where it closed the festival there. Then came festivals in Boston, Toronto, Kansas, and San Francisco and invitations to more than a dozen others.

“That is a huge honor to have my first film this well-received,” Doug says. “I’ve got really good actors and we’ve got some heat behind us. It’s not my movie, it’s our movie.”