Allegro bringing science fiction

classic Screamers to the screen

Montreal: Production begins Nov. 23 on Screamers, a major sci-fi feature film from director Christian Duguay and Allegro Films producers Tom Berry and Franco Battista.

Budgeted at $14 million and being shot over 40 days, Screamers is produced with the financial participation of Triumph, a division of Columbia Pictures, Fuji 8 of Japan, and Allegro. The film is based on a classic science-fiction story from Philip Dick, adapted for the screen by Dan O’Bannon (Total Recall, Alien I). Stars include Peter Weller (Robocop) and Roy Dupuis (Million Dollar Babies, Scoop).

The story is set on a mining planet in the late 21st century during a civil war between technicians and the corrupt corporation running the operation. In the course of the fighting, a terrible flesh-eating device called a ‘screamer’ becomes operational. But a fatal flaw in the design gives the invention the ability to evolve into an even more dangerous, human-like creature, which ultimately threatens the survival of both factions.

‘Screamers is a Quebec production and has been in the works for several years,’ says Berry. ‘It’s an important departure for us, in line with the kind of production we will be doing more of next year and in the future.’

A North American theatrical release is slated for fall ’95. Allegro Films Distribution is the Canadian distributor. Triumph has the rights for the u.s. and other selected territories.

Charles Fries is the film’s executive producer. Screamers’ 3D computer-generated images will be produced in Montreal by Buzz Image Group.

Allegro’s 1994 production slate, which also includes the Arsene Lupin mow Echec et mat, La Courte echelle children’s series, and the Doug Jackson cbs mow The Wrong Woman, represents budgets of $22 million-plus, more than double last year’s total, says Berry. Allegro Films is a subsidiary of publicly traded Groupe Coscient.

Nice work, if you can get it

Producer/director Robert Menard (Amoureux fou, Cruising Bar) won’t be around when the snow flies. He’s in the Bahamas prepping for the second leg of shooting on L’Enfant d’eau, a $3.5 million feature film being produced by Roger Frappier and Menard’s company, Productions Videofilm.

Screenwriter Claire Wojas’ L’Enfant d’eau is described by Menard as ‘a complex story of pure emotions.’

A sort of rites of passage, the film begins with a plane crash then follows the saga of two survivors, a 12-year-old girl, played by Marie-France Monette, and a 20-year-old intellectually challenged male, played by talented actor David La Haye. Their experience on the arid, isolated island charts their struggle to survive, their growing friendship, and finally, their experience as lovers.

Support cast includes Gilbert Sicotte, Monique Spaziani and Danielle Proulx.

Flashback scenes in the film, shot in Montreal and Louiseville, Que., recall the early years of La Haye’s character and were completed during the first leg, Oct. 11-23.

Menard says all equipment and key crew members – dop Michel Caron, production designer Jean-Baptiste Tard and pm Martine Allard – are being shipped from Montreal. Shooting in the Bahamas runs from Nov. 14 to Dec. 17.

Funding for the 40-day shoot comes from Videofilm, Telefilm Canada, National Film Board Studio C associate producer Yves Rivard, the Quebec tax credit and Max Films Communications, the distributor and exporter.

Full slate at Cinar

Cinar Films ceo Micheline Charest reports new production in the form of Arthur, an animated series being prepped in association with wgbh-tv Boston, and Timothy, a teen mow coproduced with New Zealand.

Based on the highly successful Mark Brown books, the Arthur stories are among Random House’s most successful cd-rom titles, says Charest. Thirty half-hours are planned, with Greg Bailey (The Busy World of Richard Scarry) directing.

Cinar is coproducing and has acquired the world rights to Timothy, being shot on location in New Zealand in association with Auckland-based Endeavour Tucker. The film is targeted at the elusive teen demographic and could represent the first in a series of similar movies. It has been presold to Canadian pay-tv outlets The Movie Network and Super Ecran.

‘They (the New Zealand partners) run a nice reliable operation.’ says Charest. ‘There are a lot of similarities between Canada and New Zealand. We might be able to pursue other projects with them.’

The busy ceo says everybody is renewing for a fifth season (65 episodes) of Are You Afraid of the Dark? Broadcast on ytv in Canada and Nickelodeon in the u.s., the series is also seen in the u.k., Scandinavia, Spain and France, where it recently premiered on France 3.

Series in development at Cinar include the animated City Mouse, Country Mouse and Wimzie’s House (La Maison de Wimzie), a major new puppet series with three or four pilots expected to be completed by mid-February, according to Theresa Holst, Cinar’s director of television sales.

The delivery date for the first 40 half-hours of Wimzie, about an irresistible little girl who moves into a daycare center with her mom, is set for the fall of 1995. Radio-Canada and Radio-Quebec are the French-track broadcasters. cbc has also expressed strong interest in the program, says Holst.

Production notes

Production has been rescheduled to the spring on Caboose, a stylized and violent street-side action picture from director Richard Roy (Moody Beach) and producer Richard Sadler, president of Film Stock International.

– Production has been ‘suspended’ on Omerta, la loi du silence, the big-budget undercover, underworld series from producer Francois Champagne and Productions sda.

Apparently, director Michel Poulette (Louis 19, le roi des ondes) has been taken off the shoot following what is being called ‘a disagreement over character portrayal,’ specifically, the director’s representation of some of the series’ ethnic mob types. Radio-Canada is the broadcaster.

– The stcvq, Quebec’s freelance film technicians union, reports that crewing is underway on a new docudrama series from director/ writer Mark Blandford.

Based on the life and times of Sam Steinberg, patriarch of the famous fighting food family of Montreal, the story parallels Steinberg’s life and career with the evolution of Quebec society.

Also examined is the man’s brilliant prepackaging innovations in retail marketing, his competitive relationship with his all-powerful mother Ida, and later, the family’s ill-considered determination to hold on to the supermarket business to the bitter end, and of course, the much-publicized, but graceless, infighting of the clan.

Blandford, who is winning kudos for his work on the popular TVA Television Network courtroom series Les grands proces, wrote the Steinberg series with journalist Pierre Sormany.

Vincent Gabriele, president of Sovimage, is the producer, and Andre Dupuis is the pm. Shooting takes place throughout November and December.

Radio-Canada is the broadcaster.