According to writer/producer Dan Mirvish, the film was made to ensure that the Academy Award category for Best Original Musical would have a minimum of five entries as required for the category to be activated, which would give his musical film Open House (2004) a chance to be one of the three Oscar nominees. However, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nonetheless chose not to offer an award in the Best Original Musical category that year. (Since then, the Oscar rules have been changed to provide that Best Original Musical category may be activated only by special request of the Music Branch Executive Committee in a year when the field of eligible submissions is determined to be of sufficient quantity and quality to justify award competition.)