PORTLAND – His debut film is finally opening in theaters in Los Angles and New York, but Neil Turitz won’t be among those watching “Two Ninas” on Friday.

“I can’t watch it anymore because there are maybe two scenes in the whole movie I wouldn’t change,” the Portland native said from his New York apartment. “It’s not a knock on the movie, it’s just the way I am.”

Between making the romantic comedy and pitching it to countless film distributors,

Turitz, 30, has seen “Two Ninas” too many times.

Two years after he finished it, the film has been picked up by Castle Hill Productions. If its initial release goes well, his directing and screenwriting debut may play in other markets.

Before now, one of the only theaters “Two Ninas” has played was the Movies on Exchange Street in Portland, in November 1999. A review in the Los Angeles Times called it a “refreshingly sharp romantic comedy” and said Turitz was “a filmmaker who can direct as deftly as he can write.”

The film is about a man, played by Ron Livingston, whose unsuccessful romantic life takes a turn when he meets two women – both named Nina – at the same time.

One of the Ninas is played by Amanda Peet, who has gone on to roles in films including “The Whole Nine Yards” with Bruce Willis, “Body Shots,” “Isn’t She Great?” and “Whipped.”

Turitz learned to love a good story early in life. His father, David, ran the Bookland bookstore chain, which gave Turitz an endless supply of reading material.

As a student at Deering High School, he wrote 15-page unassigned “novels.” After graduating from Columbia University in New York, he became a sports writer and got a job at the New York Post, where he was a clerk charged primarily with compiling box scores.

It was at his time at the paper that he got the idea for the film. He met a woman named Hilary around the same time another Hilary moved into his building. The two women – one, whom he befriended, the other whom he disliked – inspired him to write a novel. Friends told him the 350 pages of dialogue read more like a film script than a book. He decided it could be make a good movie after working as an occasional film reviewer for Us magazine.

With the help of Cara Buono, an actress he knew from Columbia, Turitz started connecting with people who would help him with his film.

He had many rejections from distribution companies before he met with success at Castle Hill.

“I held out, I really believed there was a market for this movie somewhere,” he said.

Though he won’t attend a showing on Friday, Turitz may just poke his head into a theater to see if people are there.

“It’s not that I’m not excited, but I’m just really anxious,” said Turitz. “It still doesn’t feel quite real to me.”