Sutherland plays underworld

kingpin in new Filmline feature

Montreal: In Hollow Point, a new action feature from Filmline International and director Sydney J. Furie, Donald Sutherland plays El Supremo, a powerful crime boss who brings together unruly families from the u.s., Russia, Italy and China.

Produced by Nicolas Clermont and supervising producer Stewart Harding, the film begins principal photography April 19 for seven weeks on location in Montreal. Astral Distribution has worldwide rights to the $9 million production, including u.s. rights.

Sutherland, who stars in the box office hit Outbreak, is joined on Hollow Point by Tia Carrere (Rising Sun, True Lies) in the role of an fbi agent, and Thomas Ian Griffith, who plays an ex-dea agent.

Furie, a Canadian with a long-established career in Hollywood, has impressed with films such as Universal’s The Ipcress File (1965), Paramount’s The Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and TriStar’s Iron Eagle (1986). He also directed one of the Superman movies.

Hollow Point credits go to pm/line producer Irene Litinsky (Voices from a Locked Room), dop David Franco (Million Dollar Babies), production designer Gilles Aird (Highlander III) and veteran editor Yves Langlois. Vera Miller of Elite Casting is interviewing for 20 smaller roles and 10 or so principal roles.

In other news, Clermont reports u.s. syndicator Rysher Entertainment has greenlighted a fourth season of Highlander, The Series, a $32 million, 22-hour first-run action series, which again will be shot in Vancouver.

Filmline and a u.k. partner are prepping on another action film, this one slated for July. Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren is signed as the lead. German director Carl Schenkel (Knight Moves) is also confirmed.

Earth Day

Director/producer Judith Murray and producer/writer Donna Roberts of Montreal’s NewVue Productions are the creative talents behind Celebrate the Earth, a national tv variety special marking the 25th anniversary of Earth Day.

The special is being syndicated in primetime on April 22, Earth Day, in most markets on the CTV Television Network and on ytv.

A French-track version, produced by Coscient and hosted by Sonia Benezra, will be broadcast April 16 on the Television Quatre Saisons network. Roberts says the show may be sold to TV5 and credits Bill Merrill, cfcf-tv vice-president programming/production, with getting the project off the ground.

Roberts, who set up NewVue in 1988, says the one disappointment has been cfto-tv in Toronto, the only major-market ctv station to turn down the show.

Earth Day is billed ‘as the largest grassroots environmental event in the world,’ with some five million Canadians taking part in 9,000 organized events and projects.

The special’s talent lineup includes cohosts Tom Jackson (North of 60, The Diviners), singer Rosie Emery, and a slew of performers chosen for their talent and concern for the environment – Corey Hart, Jane Siberry, Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Kashtin, Susan Aglukark, Rita MacNeil, Julie Masse, Sass Jordon, synchronized swimming star Sylvie Frechette, dancer Margie Gillis and Montreal’s singing comics Bowser & Blue.

Highlight segments in the show underline Earth Day’s ongoing activities and include a report by ytv pj Aashna Patel on an EcoKids Club in Toronto and the 25,000 kids who belong to some 1,000 such clubs across the country. Another segment called ‘Hometown Heroes’ profiles a Montreal ‘eco-crusader’ and the introduction of a new ecology youth awards program. In a third segment, Earth Day Canada’s national tree-planting program is profiled.

Murray has produced national and local tv programs, including two cbc regional series, Steppin’ Out and Consumerscope. Roberts produced and hosted the ecology tv series GreenScene and writes and produces for the ctv network news program Canada a.m.

NewVue projects in development include a travel-oriented series, a series of health vignettes, and an environmental series with a French-track coproducer.

Funding for Celebrate the Earth comes from the federal Environment Ministry, Health Canada and Natural Resources Canada. Funding from various corporate sponsors and sodec is pending.

Eldorado territory

Box office numbers for Eldorado, Charles Biname’s trend-setting, Gen-X feature film, have exceeded many industry expectations, to everyone’s satisfaction including Telefilm Canada.

Distributed by Alliance Vivafilm, the film has ranked among the top 10 in the province since its release on one screen March 3, and after three-and-a-half weeks on five screens, then nine screens, had grossed just over $250,000.

Vivafilm vice-president Pierre Brousseau says Alliance is winning kudos for its handling of the release, backed by advertising on Radio-Canada, a print campaign and an address on the Internet.

Brousseau says the film should stay in theaters for at least another two months, and the hope is to have it showcased in The Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

Eldorado was produced for $1.5 million by Lorraine Richard of Cite-Amerique.

Biname is slated to direct another Cite-Amerique project, Catherine Volant, a 10-hour drama series set at the time of the conquest of New France.

Live and on TV

The Multimedia Group of Canada has a timely two-part Cirque de Soleil performance package that makes things real easy for European programmers.

The export and packaging company, headed by president Jacques Bouchard, used this year’s mip-tv, April 7-12, to sell programmers on an opportunity to tie their broadcast of two Cirque specials to a two-year, 600-show tour of 11 major European cities, including Munich, Berlin and Paris in 1995, and London, Vienna, Hamburg and Zurich in 1996.

The tour, which unfolds under a 2,495-seat big top, is being supported by entertainment reports on local tv and national tv advertising. It began March 9 in Amsterdam and ends Dec. 22, 1996 in Oberhausen.

The package includes a one-hour, no-dialogue version of Saltimbanco, launched at mip last year, but with limited sales, and a new one-hour history of the Cirque called A Baroque Odyssey. Both specials are produced by Helene Dufresne of Montreal’s Telemagik Productions in association with Bouchard’s company, under the direction of Jacques Payette.

Dean Oros, an executive with Multimedia Group, says he recently closed a deal with Sony Transcom, Sony’s in-flight division, for 20 15-minute episodes of Cirque du Soleil in the Skies.