Paragon’s Forever Knight given the go-ahead for season three

Word is Paragon’s cult-hit syndicated series Forever Knight has an order for an additional 26 episodes.

Season two, at a budget of $22 million for 26 episodes, was slated for mid-February delivery, and season three is expected to start prepping sometime this spring in Toronto.

Paragon can’t confirm, but it is expected principals Geraint Wyn Davies (Nick Knight), John Kapelos and Catherine Disher will be back. Also expected to return are costume designer Mary Partridge and dop Bert Dunk.

Nick Gray is supervising producer and Paragon president Richard Borchiver is producer on the series.

Alliance pilot a go

Alliance Productions has a new pilot on the go. Shock Treatment: Ghost in the Machine is a one-hour mow for cbs about the adventures of a 12-year-old boy who is visited by a superhero. It’s a special effects-heavy show, part live action and part animation. Word is Alliance is still negotiating for the animation and effects contracts.

Executive producers and writers are Bill Laurin and Glen Davis. Ian MacDougall is producing and Tony Thatcher is production manager. Casting in Toronto is being handled by John Buchan and in l.a. by Liberman/Hirschfeld.

Shooting The Lady Killer

The Lady Killer, a Kushner Locke mow for cbs, is shooting in Ontario through March 10, with 10 days in Toronto and 10 days in the town of Point Abino (near Fort Erie). It’s Fatal Attraction with the man being the love-crazed menace this time.

Judith Light (Who’s The Boss), Jack Wagner (Melrose Place) and Tracy Gold (Growing Pains) star. Janet Faust (Save the Children) is producing, Steven Schacter (Above Suspicion) is directing, Bryan England is the dop and Michael Brownstone is the pm. The $3.5 million production has an all-Canadian crew.

Warner delivers

The Prince and the Pizza Boy, a Warner Bros. mow is coming to town to shoot March 6-31. Warner isn’t talking, but it is confirmed that production manager is Nan Skiba, producer is Sue Murdoch, executive producer is Mark Wolper and director is Corey Blechman. Joey Lawrence will star in this retelling of The Prince and the Pauper tale.

March prep

TriStar’s new feature, Mrs. Winterbourne, produced by Patrick Palmer and directed by Richard Benjamin, will be prepping in Toronto in March, with plans to start shooting in May. Rickie Lake will star in the contemporary story of mistaken identity. A production office has not been set up in town yet.

Walker breaks the silence

For the first time in the substantial career of John Walker (Strand – Under a Dark Cloth, Distress Signals, Hidden Children), the Toronto-based documentary director is tackling a Native Canadian story. Appropriation is a serious issue, says Walker, and after being approached to do the project by producer Peter d’entremont, he moved on the project with some reservation.

The story, told through the eyes of band chief Katie Rich, is about the cultural losses of the Innu of Davis Inlet, including the loss of oral tradition. A powerful silence descended on the community about 30 years ago when these people were forced to settle in Davis Inlet, and was broken two years ago when six children died in a fire. The tragedy proved a catharsis and the desire to communicate flooded the community.

Walker sent a letter to community leaders asking if they wanted a film made about their situation. Their response was an emphatic yes, and Walker proceeded.

Documentary filmmaker Nigel Markham (Hunters and Bombers) will shoot the film on Super 16mm. Production begins in March and will continue intermittently over a period of a year. cbc’s Witness will air the doc in ’96.

Walker is also working on another year-long shoot, Teachers, a documentary about conditions for high school teachers at a school in downtown Toronto. It’s not an issue film, says Walker, it’s a film shaped by observation ‘in the tradition of the cinema direct.’ There’s no agenda.

Walker’s focus is on how teachers deal with the dichotomy between the importance of high school and teenagers’ almost unanimous rejection of it. Walker is shooting the film on Super 16mm for tvontario’s The View From Here, with Tom Perlmutter (Distress Signals) and Adam Symansky (The Valour and the Horror) coproducing.

Something to laugh about

The story is a familiar one: promising filmmaker with small (perhaps first) effort shops around fruitlessly for funding, a distributor, a broadcaster. Then, perseverance withstanding, acclaim comes along in some form or other for the finished product, thereby opening the doors for shopping anew.

In Terry Steyn’s case, he went ahead (without agency support but with the requisite credit card shuffle) to make Something to Cry About, a 20-minute short, for $7,500. Steyn couldn’t get a broadcaster interested until the film played at the Yorkton Film Festival last year and won a slew of awards.

Now, after airing on cbc’s Sunday Arts and Entertainment, the film is up for four Geminis (best short dramatic program, best actor, best photography and best picture editing – all in the dramatic program or miniseries category).

Something to Cry About is about despondent 17-year-old, played by Bret Pearson, who suffers at the hands of yuppie parents and their cynical ways. It was written by Pearson’s sister Laurie (writer and story editor on Road to Avonlea) as a birthday gift.

The film was shot on 16mm in four days by dop Mitch Ness in editor Rob Jackson’s basement.

Since Cry, Steyn has kept busy as production manager on Forever Knight, and has three new projects in development, all based on plays: Alaska (also written by Laurie Pearson), and two by Morris Panych, 7 Stories (winner of three Dora Awards) and the Governor General Award-winning The Ends of the Earth. The two Panych projects are features and Alaska is a tv short.