Roy returns with Films Stock

film noir thriller, Caboose

Montreal: Gildor Roy plays Marceau, a ex-cop stalked by a murderer in Richard Roy’s return to the big screen, the film noir thriller Caboose.

Coproduced by Richard Sadler of Films Stock International and Henry Lange of France’s Fontainebleau Films, the $2.7 million feature begins shooting May 22 on location in Montreal and goes for 30 days to June 30.

Set in the shadows and shooting galleries of a violent urban underbelly, Caboose opens with a murder in an abandoned railway car and corruption charges leading to a twisted cop’s resignation. When a mysterious character starts to stalk the cop, he hires a female rookie on the squad to find out who it is.

Sadler says Roy (Moody Beach) has worked hard for a new shot at directing a feature after being the fall guy a few years back when people in the business were complaining about too-generous budgets for first-time filmmakers. He adds the film has been in development for two years and has gone through some 20 rewrites.

Investors include Telefilm Canada (about $1 million), the Quebec and federal tax credits, the Canada/France mini-treaty ($250,000), an advance from distributor Alliance Vivafilm, and deferred fees and investment from the director and some of the crew.

Sadler is also negotiating with sodec, which has turned the project down more than once but is happily back at the table.

Screenwriters are Roy, Odile Poliquin and Michel Michaud (Louis 19, le roi des ondes, Coyote).

Sadler, producer on Louis 19, says the box-office hit comedy is being launched on 40 screens this month across France with a new and improved – and apparently more French – title, Reality Show. The distributor is Eurozoom. Sadler also reports he’s talking to Universal about a remake.

As for Caboose, Sadler thinks it’s guaranteed a solid international career. Alliance International has the foreign rights. November ’95 is delivery date for copy zero.

Four-month shoot for Gold Hunters

Cinevideo Plus president Justine Heroux is in production through to mid-August on Gold Hunters, a series of four tv movies based on the Jack London Smoke Bellow adventure tales.

Set in the Yukon at the height of the Gold Rush, the films follow the misadventures of Parisian writer Charles Belliou and his encounters with the high-living and snake-bitten characters who trekked North seeking fame and fortune.

Coproducers on Gold Hunters are Robert Rea of Ellipse Programme and Christian Charret of Gaumont Television, the same team that produced last season’s Tales of the Wild, a series of six 90-minute tv movies.

Helmed by French director Marc Simenon (Agency O, The Deadly), Gold Hunters stars French lead Wadeck Stanczak as Belliou, Michele Barbara Pelletier, Michael Lamport, Lorne Brass, Serge Houde, Jean-Guy Bouchard, James Bradford, Jack Langedijk, Francois Eric Gendron, James Hyndman and u.s. actor Richard Moll of Night Court tv fame.

Denis Heroux and Nicole Ricard wrote three of the four scripts. Story editor Robert Geoffrion wrote the fourth.

Craft credits go to supervising producers Yaniko Palis and Bernard Guiremand, dop Eric Cayla, art director Guy Lalande, first ads Luc Campeau and Xavier De Cassan, pm Nicole Hilareguy and Emmy-award winning costume designer Nicoletta Massone (Zelda).

Heroux is in development on at least two other projects, The Apocalypse Cult, an mow on the Solar Temple mass murder/ suicide tragedy, and a cd-rom animation game called The Gold Rush.

Gold Hunters will be broadcast on TMN-The Movie Network and Super Ecran in Canada and on FR3 in France.

Astral Distribution holds the Canadian rights. Ellipse International is handling foreign sales in association with Astral. The series is also available in an eight-part, 45-minute format.

Gilbert stars in Zoya

The four-hour Cramer Company/NBC Productions miniseries Zoya is shooting in Montreal for five weeks following a week in St. Petersburg, Russia. The production is based on the Danielle Steel novel of the same name.

Directed by Richard Colla and executive produced by Douglas Cramer, Zoya tells the epic story of a Russian noble family at the time of the October Revolution of 1917. The series keys on Zoya, starting at age 17, and follows her life to age 70. Melissa Gilbert plays Zoya and Bruce Boxleitner plays her first husband and true love. Diana Rigg and David Warner also star.

pm Josette Perrotta (While Justice Sleeps, Squanto: Indian Warrior) says Montreal is standing in for Paris and New York, with additional filming slated for both those cities.

Perrotta says the outlook for location action in Montreal this summer ‘seems healthy, and we hear all the rumors.’

Cramer and nbc shot two mows here last summer, Vanished from director George Kaczender, and No Greater Love, directed by Richard Heffron.

Local credits go to art director Ray Dupuis and costume supervisor Ginette Magny, while busy international traveler Laszlo George is the cinematographer. Zoya is being produced by Fred Muller and is crewed by the stcvq.

Major coprod deal with Poland

Producers with Modus TV and Neofilms came home from mip-tv with some excellent news in hand, a signed coproduction deal with Polish Television to produce a 13-hour drama series based on the Arlette Cousture novel, Ces Enfants d’ailleurs.

Ces Enfants d’ailleurs opens in Poland in 1939 and recounts the terrible fate of a family who become victims of the Nazis and are forced to emigrate to Canada.

Claude Fournier is adapting the novel, and the TVA Television Network is slated to broadcast in the fall of 1996.

Neofilms producer Philippe Dussault says Poland has a long history of film production but hasn’t been very active as a coproducer. He says his new Polish partners see the deal as a likely route to doing more business in North America.

Shooting on the $13 million production is scheduled for this fall in Poland and on location and in-studio in Montreal starting in February.

Modus and Neofilms team up on major drama projects, but each company produces its own independent slate.

Modus producers are Jacques Blain and Anne-Marie Hutu. Dussault and Christian Gagne are producing for Neofilms. Miroslaw Bork is the Polish producer. Dussault and Neofilms produced the popular Television Quatre Saisons miniseries Misericorde (Mercy).