And the productions just keep coming and comingÉ

For those who thought last year’s Toronto production tally – $320 million – was impressive, this year’s anticipated total is double that.

David Plant of the Toronto Film Liaison Office says the first six-month stretch of ’94 clocked in at an impressive 103% increase over last year’s first half (and thus the basis for the $640 million prediction).

Plant says with the increase, Toronto may well have climbed into the number-two slot for television production (with Los Angeles reigning supreme). ‘For overall production, number two is still New York, but I think they have real reason to be concerned,’ he says.

The low Canadian dollar is not the driving force behind the boon, says Plant. ‘Input from the newly public companies, increased interest in film and tv from the financial community (especially banks), and a huge talent pool’ are at the root of the surge, he says.

About 25 productions are shooting or in prep, with approximately 10 pending. Six are feature films, seven are mows and 12 are tv series.

Atlantis set to shoot

New on the Toronto slate is the mow Man in the Attic, a turn-of-the-century love story produced by Atlantis Films for Showtime and starring Anne Archer. The movie is based on a true tale out of Milwaukee in which the third wheel of a love triangle lived in his lover’s attic for 30 years.

Graeme Campbell is directing, Brian Parker is producing and Sandie Pereira is production manager. The dop had not been confirmed at press time. Dwayne Pool and Tom Swale wrote the script for cbs. Shooting starts Aug. 8.

Atlantis is also busy in the early stages of preproduction on the TekWar series. John Calvert is the production manager.

Feature rundown

Among the feature films headed our way are:

– Moonlight and Valentino, produced by Alison Owen and starring Whoopi Goldberg and Kathleen Turner, is expected to hit the streets of Toronto in late August.

– Mia: Child of Hollywood (as in Farrow), produced by Tarquin Gough, directed by Karen Arthur and starring Patsy Kensit, is slated for a September shoot.

– National Lampoon’s Senior Trip, an Alliance Communications/New Line picture, is slated to roll Aug. 15 with Wendy Grean producing and Kelly Makin directing. Production manager is David Hood.

– Meridian Entertainment’s Synapsis is set to shoot from mid-August to mid-September.

– This week, Alliance’s big series for cbs, Due South, will start shooting eight episodes with Paul Gross and David Marciano starring. Jeff King is supervising producer and Adam Haight is line producer. George Bloomfield and Joe Scanlon are directing episodes one and two respectively, with Malcolm Cross as dop and Norman Denver acting as production manager.

Each of the eight $1.5 million episodes has a two-week-shoot. Airdates are not carved in stone, but it looks like Sept. 18 will see the pilot go to air and four days later the series will be launched.

Three for 3 Themes

Daniele Suissa and Donald Martin of 3 Themes International are developing two coproductions with France and a mystery project with City-tv. Two are to be shot in Toronto.

First up is Behind the Mirror, a theatrical script in development with Flach Films of Paris (Three Men and a Cradle) and Protocol Entertainment. It’s based on a true story, set in Toronto, about a mother who helps her son through a sex change.

Martin bought the rights to the story and is cowriting with Madelaine Thompson. Suissa will be directing.

The picture’s connection to Flach is graced by famous French actor Jeanne Moreau (an old friend of Suissa’s), who is considering the role of the mother. 3 Themes is aiming for a February 1995 shoot in Hogtown, with casting starting in October.

A tv movie, A Land Within, is in development with Paris-based Cipango Productions. Suissa is writing and directing and 3 Themes will coproduce with Cipango.

The story is about a woman who has been in exile for 15 years and no longer knows where she belongs. The film will be shot in Banff this winter and some casting may take place in France.

The project with City was sparked by an article written by Toronto Star reporter Peter Cheney. 3 Themes has secured the rights from Cheney, but Martin is still awaiting clearance from those involved in the story. In the interim, details are not available.

3 Themes is currently in the process of moving into new offices at Church and Shuter Streets.

What to do?

Director Annette Mangaard (Let Me Wrap My Arms Around You) has wrapped casting for her first feature, FishTale Soup, with one dilemma hanging. Mangaard received news that Graham Greene is interested in a major role in the film, but during the casting process, she encountered a ‘great’ unknown actor (he’s Viennese), and now she can’t decide what to do.

‘(Greene) is a wonderful actor and it would be great to have a star. But then again, there is something about discovering an unknown,’ says Mangaard.

Alliance Communications, with which Mangaard is looking to tie a distribution deal for the $800,000 pic, may have some input in the matter.

Meanwhile, Kathy Lasky and Julian Richings have been cast as the leads.

Mangaard says the ‘quirky, romantic comedy’ is about a couple trying to have a child when a refugee (who turns out to be an angel sent from above) lands on their doorstep and forever changes their lives. It’s the refugee role that Greene and the Viennese mystery man are up for.

Mangaard is aiming for a five-week shoot, starting mid-October.

The future is now

Futureworld, a weekly magazine show that promises to guide viewers into the future, will be coming to CBC Newsworld this September.

Producer Andrew Johnson (Threads of Hope) developed the idea last year after looking at a futurist magazine. ‘The pace of change is accelerating at a bewildering rate and people need a guide to trends, forecasts and ideas about life in the future,’ says Johnson.

The ground Johnson plans to cover includes science, education, leisure and agriculture. For the most part, Johnson will be recycling cbc news footage and shooting interviews with specialists such as Dr. Fraser Mustard of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research and futurist Frank Ogden. Johnson has been signed on to do the in-house show, which has a commitment for the fall season.

A Devine slate

Devine Entertainment, a Toronto-based production house, has gone public with six productions on its slate for this year and another six to follow in 1995/96.

The 1994 package is a Czech-Canada coproduction of six historically correct children’s television programs about classical composers (much in the style of Beethoven Lives Upstairs, which Devine produced). Miro Films in Prague and Bratislava-based Alef Studios are Devine’s coproduction partners on the six one-hour shows.

Leif Bristow, Devine vice-president, says principal photography on the first show, Bizet’s Dream, is just wrapping in Bratislava. Based on a young girl’s tutelage under the master while he wrote Carmen, the program was written by Heather Conkie and directed by David Devine, with Barry Stone as dop. Stars include Maurice Godin as Bizet and R.H Thomson. The program will air this fall on Family Channel in Canada.

Each of the six productions will be shot in Eastern Europe, with most of the posting also taking place there, says Bristow. Writers on the remaining five shows – Bach’s Fight for Freedom, Handel’s Last Chance, Rossini’s Mystery, Strauss: The King of Three-Quarter Time and Liszt’s Rhapsody – are Conkie, Marlene Matthews and Raymond Storey. Directors are Devine (Rossini), Stewart Gillard (Bach), Richard Mozer (Lizst) and Kit Hood (Strauss). dops are Stone, David Perrault and Sean Valentini. Casting – by Anne Tate – is still underway. The production budget for each one-hour installment is $1.15 million.

Multimedia is handling worldwide distribution with Devine retaining English-speaking Canada, the u.s. and Germany. Family Channel and cfcf-tv in Montreal have bought broadcast rights in Canada.

As soon as production is finished, Bristow says Devine will look to develop cd-rom. ‘We are not entering into a licence agreement but looking for a joint venture with either a Canadian or American company.’

Devine is developing a second similar series focusing on inventors (such as Einstein, da Vinci, Franklin). Bristow says they are planning to start production next July and, as with the composer series, will have a production schedule of one show per month.

Devine is now listed on the Alberta Stock Exchange at $1.50 per unit (each unit comprises one share and one warrant).

Something to marvel at

Director Tibor Takacs (who has just been signed to direct the pilot for the $30 million mgm/Atlantis series, The Outer Limits) has received some Marvel-ous news: he and cyberpunk-pal and producer Brian Irving have sold their comic book script for Redline to Marvel/Epic comic books.

Redline is a noir, retro-cyberpunk (whoa, are we there already?) gangster tale set in a futuristic Moscow – a Muscovite Blade Runner.

And the dynamic duo is hoping to develop a live-action feature from the same material early next year.

Irving says they hope the $8 million to $10 million pic will coincide with the 1995/96 run of the comic book series.

‘In the u.s., when you are talking about films not set in the States (and we hope to film in Budapest with locations in Moscow), they have a hard time imagining what the film would look like. The comic book will help people visualize it.’

John Van Fleet (Clive Barker’s Primal series) is the artist for the comic books, a real coup, says Irving. ‘What Marvel pays us is peanuts. It’s more the status, especially with John doing the art.’ Torontonian Irving and l.a.-based partner Takacs own the rights to Redline and are looking for some flush American partners to come on-side.

In the meantime, Irving and Takacs are scouting for venture partners for two scripts (‘genre’ pics, according to Irving) – Twins, a feature about seven-year-old girl twins who go on a rampage, and Hellbent (with Larry Block of The Funhouse fame), a ‘teens-in-jeopardy’ tv movie.