Heaven Tonight is a 1990 Australian film.
An ageing rock star (John Waters) tries to make a comeback and is jealous about the success of his son (Guy Pearce).[2][3]
Writer-producer Frank Howson later claimed that "every incident" in the film was true: "either I have lived it, or I know somebody who has. There is no fabrication, except in the names, which have been changed to protect the guilty."[4]
Howson said " I wrote this movie for all those talented people who had their 15 minutes of fame and then got shut out in the cold."[5]
He says the Baz Schultz character was a combination of Stevie Wright and Ken Firth of The Ferrets.[5]
Waters and Pearce were cast for their singing talent as well as their acting skills, and Pearce released a single, "Call of the Wild", from the film.[6]
Howson said "I’d never seen Guy Pearce on “Neighbours” so I hadn’t type-cast him so when he came in to audition... I had an open mind and he fitted the part of Paul Dysart to perfection. He also had a very good singing voice, and could play guitar, which was a huge plus as I wanted to record all the music live."[5]
The film was not a commercial success and only ran for two weeks in cinemas in Sydney and Melbourne.[1]
Filmink called it "probably Howson’s best movie. It is the best structured, possibly due to the input of Alister Webb who is credited as co-writer. It has a strong central situation, the drama works logically and it is excellently cast. "[7]
The film provided comedic material for the 2006-2007 Austereo radio comedy show Get This. Host Tony Martin referred to the film on a number of occasions, making jibes at the name of Guy Pearce's character's band which was 'Video Rodney', the frequent references to the film's villain whose name was the ill-chosen 'Tim Robbins' and the 1980s synth-rock music which was seen as passé at the time.