Newbie filmmakers April Mullen and Tim Doiron are ushering their second feature, the oddball comedy GravyTrain, into theaters following a two-picture deal with Alliance Films that started with the well-received Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Way of the Tosser back in 2008.

The multi-tasking duo’s latest bows Friday at Toronto’s AMC Yonge/Dundas, with plans to expand to Montreal and Ottawa on May 7. Mullen, who directs, and Doiron, who penned the script, both also star and produce through their Toronto-based Tossin’ Gravy Productions shingle.

As with Rock, Paper, Scissors, the producers had a big hand in the marketing — generating ideas, designing posters and arranging events — which helped get Alliance on board, according to Mullen.

‘[Alliance] was really familiar with what we did grassroots-wise [for Rock, Paper, Scissors] in taking the film and marketing it across the country… because of our experience and all the press we got for our first film, they were really easily swayed,’ she tells Playback Daily.

The comedy, which also stars comedians Colin Mochrie, Peter Keleghan and Saturday Night Live‘s Tim Meadows, follows quirky character Charles GravyTrain who, along with his sidekick Miss Uma Booma, tries to avenge his father’s death at the hands of an elusive crook.

Mullen says the film appeals to both young and old, noting that teens will enjoy its over-the-top humor, while baby boomers will get a kick out of the throwback to the 1970s. The film was shot in Niagara Falls with the RED camera.

Also opening on Friday:

• Alliance has the Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy The Back-Up Plan, out on 271 screens, while it bows on 3,000 screens stateside through CBS Films.

• Cameron Labine’s debut Control Alt Delete, which screened at TIFF and VIFF last year, bows exclusively at Vancouver’s Tinseltown theater via E1 Entertainment.

• Mongrel Media has Argentina’s The Secret in Their Eyes, which won this year’s Oscar for best foreign-language film, playing in Toronto and Vancouver, with other cities to follow.

• Among new Hollywood releases is Disney’s nature doc Oceans (which opened Thursday on Earth Day) on 1,200 screens, while Warner Bros. has the actioner The Losers out on 3,000 screens.