About five months after Eastern Mall Ltd., which owned the studios, facilities and properties at Cinespace, was declared bankrupt, word is a new owner has been found and the deal is signed.

According to solid industry sources, Bob Richards of Studio Oasis has bought the facility for an undisclosed sum and word is he plans to add a sound facility to the existing 12 stages.

Richards declined comment at press time, but the delay in the purchase is said to have been tied to Cinespace’s dowry: a multimillion-dollar deficit to the City of Toronto. The studio had run into financial difficulties in the late eighties and was saved from ruin in 1992 when the Toronto Economic Development Corporation stepped in with a loan of $4 million.

There is still over $5 million owing to the city on the property.

Experiment in T.O.

it’s still at the early stages, but chances are Constantin Costa-Gavras will shoot part of his new thriller for Paramount, The Experiment, in Toronto. Primary location looks like it will be Boston. Coproducers are Legende Films and Gaumont, producer is Alain Goldman, and screenwriter is Roselyne Bosch.

To laugh or to cry?

more of our homegrown funny guys are heading south of the border this winter, and it’s got everything to do with migration. Mark Wilson, Ernie Grunwald and Robert Joy have been cast in a Worldwide Pants (David Letterman) series that was rejected by cbs last year and just got signed for 13 episodes with hbo.

The High Life is a black-and-white ‘Honeymooners-ish’ comedy about two guys who run a storage company in Pittsburgh in 1956. Written by Adam Resnick (Cabin Boy), the Norton type is Emmet (Joy), the Ralph Cramden character is a boisterous Texan named Earl (Wilson) who is perpetually scheming to make money, and the third wheel is Claud, a bumbling ‘half-lobotomized’ clerk who is related to Emmet.

The series, executive produced by Letterman, Robert Morton and Resnick, is shooting in New York. Casting agent Liz Ramos says although Joy has been in the States for some time, it’s a first for Grunwald (a face of many commercials) and Wilson (Maniac Mansion).

Under the Knife

nasty Burgers maker James E. Motluck is aiming his camera at the policies of Premier Mike Harris and shooting for a scathing portrait along the lines of the infamous Roger and Me.

Motluck, who put his first feature together for $49,000 using credit cards and other private sources of funding, projects a $100,000 budget to make the documentary, Life Under Mike. So far, he has secured between $30,000 and $50,000 from trade unions, including opseu, the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, and he is confident the rest will follow.

Motluck is delving into the economic principles behind Harris’ ‘common sense revolution’ in the hopes of securing some interest abroad (especially in the u.k., New Zealand and the u.s.), and he’s after ‘the whole story’ – from civil servants, individuals impacted by Harris’ policies, and the man himself.

Also on Motluck’s plate is The Cynniks, a feature comedy script which has Andre Bennett signed as executive producer and has been presold to Telefilmsaar for the Germanic territories. It’s about a young unemployed writer who hangs out at the Idler pub and espouses, with his friends, the disenfranchisement of his generation (the weary souls born in the sixties). Motluck is seeking a Canadian distributor for the $1 million project.

His tribute to the silent screen, Taking Care of Pola, is still in development.

Swimming with sharks

veteran underwater cinematographer and director John Stoneman is diving into deep waters to shoot a new series with Maxima Films of Toronto, producers of The Living Sea for Discovery (another Stoneman-helmed series).

The new project is Sharks: The Silent Killers, and executive producer J. Gary Gladman says of the series: ‘There are things that one doesn’t do generally with sharks and it is our intention to do some of these things and to shoot things that have not been shot before.’

Extraordinary in this field means such things as: Stoneman will climb out of the underwater cage for some closer takes of the mammals and he will photograph the sharks at night at feeding time (something Gladman says will make ‘exciting tv’).

Likely starting in May, Stoneman and crew will be heading for the shores of the Caribbean and Australia to capture the flesh-eating creatures that run anywhere from 18 to 30 feet long.

Gladman says they have a budget of $2.5 million for 13 episodes, and although a broadcaster is up in the air, he is confident that coproducers in Germany and the u.s. will be signed imminently.

With 35 years’ experience and a specialized knowledge of sharks to guide Stoneman through some of the rougher moments, Gladman says he isn’t worried and getting insurance shouldn’t be a problem. ‘I think since it’s John Stoneman doing it it’s not dangerous. He has this intuitive understanding of sharks.’

The Living Sea, completed last September, has won awards at the Houston and Charleston festivals.

Slo-mo

plans for the local Disney animation studio to start staffing as of early January proved a bit premature as reams of applications piled up to Mickey’s ears. vp international production Lenora Hume, who is supervising the startup, is reportedly still immersed in the 1,000-odd resumes and presentations despite having gone through over 300 interviews in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

Disney spokesperson Laurel Whitcomb says it looks like it will be March before a ‘fledgling’ office is set up in a temporary Toronto location with a staff of about four key personnel. As to who those personnel will be, mum’s the word at Disney and in the animation community, although it’s no secret Disney has been courting producers at Nelvana and Phoenix.

One producer says people are waiting to hear what the Disney projects will be before making any moves. Plans are to set up a permanent office in the summer, and Whitcomb says talent recruitment and employment will start sometime in the spring.