Two weeks after the winners of Britain’s feature film franchises were announced, startups triggered by the winning bids are beginning to surface while the shutout Canadian players say it’s business as usual in the u.k. territory.

Consortiums including Alliance Communications, Paragon Entertainment’s HandMade Films, Nelvana and Mayfair Entertainment all came up snake-eyes in bids for a piece of the feature film franchises awarded by the Arts Council of England and financed by the u.k. National Lottery.

Making the announcement at Cannes, the ace awarded £92 million to three of the 37 applying consortiums.

The Film Consortium, helmed by Nik Powell and Stephen Woolley (The Crying Game), was a widely predicted green light, winning £30.3 million. DNA Film, composed of producer Duncan Kenworthy (Four Weddings and a Funeral) and Andrew Macdonald (Trainspotting), was awarded £29 million. Pathe Prods., a consortium of smaller prodcos, will make 35 films with its £33 million. Among them, the three are slated to produce some 90 feature films over the next six years.

The Canadian contingent, along with the rest of the losing prodcos, say they were somewhat surprised by a statement from the ace which said certain applications did not meet franchise criteria, and by the fact that Pathe Prods. with a French partner, Canal+, got the nod. Four bids were expected to be licensed, but only three found favor with the ace.

In the interim, Canal+ has announced plans to construct a European feature film distribution network in association with distribcos in France (amlf), the u.k. (Guild Pathe), Germany (Tobis), Spain (Sogepaq) and Italy.

The network will focus on the promotion and distribution of locally produced films in Europe, including those produced and acquired by Pathe and Canal+, and market movies produced outside Europe. Together, Pathe and Canal+ will acquire European rights, either on their own or via the local distributors.

Closer to home, commenting on Alliance’s plans to set up a u.k. distribution office, George Berger, vp, corporate development for Alliance, says Electric Pictures will be handling its u.k. distribution activities and adds that all the synergies in place in the franchise consortium bid will stay in place.

Alliance teamed up with Electric, the bbc and External Producers in a group led by former head of bbc one-off drama, George Faber.

Faber will be looking into support from ace funds for projects on a case-by-case basis, although it’s premature to predict the number of films that may be developed by the group.

‘Obviously the scale will change. With a successful franchise, we could have had a guarantee of available monies. But the key elements we contemplated for studio production remain in place,’ says Berger.

As for Paragon, ceo Jon Slan says the red light will have no effect on HandMade’s production incarnations.

‘A lot of our consortium’s synergies were already there and we had never factored a successful lottery application into our slate. We’ve projected to make four or five films this year and that’s still the plan.’

In other Brit-centric news, Alliance Independent Films has snagged worldwide rights to London, Eng.-based Lexington Films’ first feature, The Girl With Brains in Her Feet, marking the first time the distribution company has acquired outside North America.

Directed by Robert Bangura, the film stars 16-year-old Joanna Ward as Jack, a 13-year-old runner and academic growing up in the British Midlands during the early ’70s. The script comes from Jo Hodges (Vicious Circles).

Lexington, formed last year, is a collaboration between directors Don Boyd and Henry Herbert and former architect Stephanie Mills.