*CTV signs on for The Englishman’s Boy

Last time we checked in with Minds Eye Pictures’ Kevin DeWalt he had scooped the option to Guy Vanderhaege’s Governor General Award-winning novel The Englishman’s Boy and convinced the Saskatchewan author to pen the script himself. DeWalt flagged big plans to produce an epic feature in the ballpark of $20 million.

The Englishman’s Boy project has been fueled full-speed ahead with the signing of a six-figure development deal with ctv. The broadcaster has put up the advance against first-window Canadian tv rights.

Vanderhaege is set to work on a treatment, to be delivered this spring. The timeline has the first draft complete by fall ’98. Production is slated for the following year.

The calls keep coming in from producers vying to partner up with Minds Eye, but DeWalt remains firm that he wants his company to take the project through development without any outside help. International financing opportunities are part of the game plan but not until after a script is in his hands.

A decision on a director will also wait until script delivery.

With a broadcaster secured, DeWalt now has the trigger he needs to pick up additional development financing. Applications have been rushed to The Harold Greenberg Fund, Telefilm Canada and Saskfilm for support at the script stage.

DeWalt is now eagerly awaiting word from the agencies and hopes to have further financing news to report for the next update. CB

*Stand Up Guys gives ‘U.S.-style’ reading

The last report from Steel City Films had the duo of writer/director/producer Michael Cameron and producer Kirk Johnson working with Paragon as a production partner in the development of Stand Up Guys. The $1.8-million feature project is a quirky-yet-marketable action/comedy about five stand-up comics and their bungled attempt at bank robbery.

Johnson and Cameron had already met with wic regarding a pay-tv presale and have had discussions with Wesley Snipes’ Amen Ray Films on the possibilities for u.s. talent attachment.

And, of course, Squiggy, aka actor David Landers, is on board for a small part.

The all-consuming event for Steel City now is the ‘u.s.-style’ studio reading that Johnson and Cameron hope will showcase the actual comic viability of the script for Stand Up Guys. At press time, attendance was expected from Alliance, Atlantis, Paragon, Producers Network Associates, Viacom, Citytv and Cineplex (and some writers’ agents), with North Star, cfp and Astral also invited for the reading on the evening of Oct. 20 at Ryerson.

Cameron and Johnson also recently had a productive meeting with TMN-The Movie Network’s Jamie Leder, who asked the pair to submit a script, budget and a list of attachments to this point to examine it for presale.

Also locked in was a lineup of Canadian talent to deliver the lines at the studio and possibly in the film itself. Johnson says actress Jennifer Dale, Boyd Banks, who starred in Paragon’s The Wrong Guy, and comic Winston Spear among others were set to read, some of whom Johnson says he hopes will sign on for the film.

‘By having a reading we get the people we know can do the job – and some of whom we hope to cast in the film – to read and show off the timing, pace and diversity of characters,’ says Johnson. ‘And you’ll have an audience already there so people can see it for themselves as well as see how it reacts in a live audience environment.’

The reading, consisting of ‘five comics, five gangsters and a swat team,’ is part of a ‘three-pronged attack’ on the part of Steel City: to hook up with an established production company; to lock down Canadian talent – an ensemble cast ‘made up of Canadian comics who are underneath the radar and people who have done supporting feature roles;’ and to get one or two u.s. stars for marquee value.

The film’s financing structure is in place, says Johnson, with the basic framework of a pay-tv presale licence and a development deal with an established production player, the ‘letter from Mom and Dad,’ which allows the project to access u.s. money via involvement from either Showtime or a u.s. distributor.

Johnson says he is hoping for the initial presale deal by December.

Meanwhile, Cameron is set to work on a rewrite of his short film Gang Cop, which has to meet the Dec. 1 deadline for the Ontario Film Development Corporation’s calling card financing program; but that is on hold until after the studio read.

Cameron calls the read a ‘big thing,’ and says the technique worked well for Steel City’s last feature project, Seven Day Itch, being produced by pna and for which Cameron just completed a rewrite to add a few scenes. The script has been sent to l.a. for the perusal of C. Thomas Howell, whom pna is courting to direct the film, and casting is also underway.

Cameron is also looking to sign on as a writer for Atlantis Films’ Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict. After going through three levels of the show’s people here, Cameron says he was told to redirect his queries to l.a.