Vancouver: Lions Gate Entertainment – which will make a splashy feature film debut with the Leonardo DiCaprio-led feature American Psycho – will also produce four television series for the fall schedules.

Division Mandalay Television, based in Los Angeles, has confirmed Cupid for abc, Mercy Point for upn, Oh Baby for Lifetime and Rude Awakening for Showtime.

Scott Sanders, Joe Voci and Peter Guber will produce the series in conjunction with Columbia TriStar Television.

Cupid, which shot its pilot in Vancouver, is a 13-episode, one-hour comedy with Jeremy Piven (Ellen) about a psychiatric patient who believes he’s Eros.

Vancouver actor Cynthia Stevenson (Hope and Gloria, Bob) will star in the one-hour comedy Oh Baby, about a thirtysomething woman who is artificially inseminated.

One or both of these shows have the greatest likelihood of shooting in Vancouver. However, Dennis Miller, president of Lions Gate Media, says locations in Vancouver, l.a. or Chicago will be under consideration for all the series until mid-June. He expects at least one to land here.

Less likely candidates are Mercy Point, a one-hour sci-fi medical thriller, and Rude Awakening, a comedy about a woman dealing with sobriety.

– Early bird

Cadence Entertainment, after standing first in line to secure the needed $600,000 from the ctcpf’s Western envelope in April, begins production on Taillights Fade June 3 through July 3.

The $2.5-million feature stars Margot Kidder with lesser known actors including Canadian Tanya Allen (Regeneration) and Americans Jake Busey (Starship Troopers) and Breckin Meyer (Clueless). The storyline is about two couples who race across Canada to help liberate a friend’s grow house full of pot.

Vancouver producer Christine Haebler (Hard Core Logo) calls the road movie a ‘comedic noir’ film that is an ‘innocent’ drug caper rather than an homage to the marijuana culture. In other high-concept lingo, she calls the film a cross between a Cannonball Run for the ’90s with True Romance, without the budget.

The script is written by Matt Gissing, who has relocated to Vancouver from Toronto. Coproducers are Karen Powell and Shawn Williamson and Scott Kennedy is executive producer.

Motion International is handling the Canadian release of the film while an international distributor is yet to be signed.

– Next stop

Vancouver’s Scintilla Entertainment caps off 18 weeks of animation with a half-week of live-action production to finish the shooting schedule for the pilot of Twisteria June 6.

The pilot for ytv is about a man who falls asleep on a bus and winds up in the weird and animated world of Twisteria. Canadian actor Thomas Cavanaugh is the live guy. It will air in October, and depending on audience reaction, will move into a series.

Producer Pindar Azad says, meanwhile, she’ll be at the Banff Television Festival trying to secure other distributors.

– Extra sauce

Back in Vancouver yet again, legendary puppet master Shari Lewis rekindles her magic with The Charlie Horse Music Pizza kids’ series June 8 through Sept. 11.

Sponsored by Baton and pbs, the series is about music education and takes place in Lewis’ pizzeria. This time, though, puppet character Charlie Horse gets top billing in the series, which introduces new puppets like the skateboarding delivery boy.

Live characters are played by Dom DeLuise, Jonathan Frakes, Genie Francis and George Segal.

– Three teevee movees

The usa network is backing Captivity, an mow featuring Mario van Peebles and Holly Robinson, who forged her career in the Vancouver-shot 21 Jumpstreet series. Captivity is about a poverty-line family from the projects of Chicago that is held captive by robbers in an estate the family just inherited. It wraps June 26.

– usa will also air Sipes vs. McGhee, a tv movie with Lynn Whitfield that continues production until July 3. In the mow based on a true story from the 1940s, a black family moves into a white neighborhood and faces a discriminatory lawsuit from neighbors that goes to the u.s. Supreme Court.

– Suddenly Susan’s Judd Nelson, meanwhile, stars in Disney’s tv movie Suspect Behavior. Production runs through June 29 on the story about two kids in an apartment building who begin to believe their neighbor is a murderer.

– The deep

Vancouver-based short film director/producer Nathan Garfinkel’s newest effort premiers in the Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival’s Images Canada lineup, running June 1-7.

Sploosh, which is scripted by local writer Kellie Benz, is about five tourists who believe they have seen the infamous b.c. lake monster, Ogopogo, only to discover it saw them first. Brendan Beiser, Paul McGillion, Leslie Jones, Michael Sunczyk and Damon Johnson star.

Garfinkel’s previous short film This Way Up was showcased at last year’s Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival and has gone on to screen at more than 19 international festivals and win a mittful of awards.

– More, please

Greedy Productions’ newsmagazine Electric Playground is building a bigger sandbox for its 13-episode second season by gaining new broadcast markets.

At press time, the video game industry series had eight new markets in North America, bringing the total to about 25 including upn, Fox and wb affiliates in the u.s. and a new deal with Space: The Imagination Station in Canada.

Greedy – which coproduces with Vancouver’s Vidatron – has sold each of the markets itself. New Jersey-based Janson Associates, however, is shopping the show overseas and has broadcast deals pending for Asia, Europe and Latin America, says Greedy producer Torben Rolfsen.

Space will rerun the first season beginning in June on Sunday mornings, while Bellingham, Washington’s kvos (the first station to take up the show last season) will air new episodes in June on Saturday mornings.

– Applause

Victoria-based Asterisk Productions won two awards for The Monarch: A Butterfly Beyond Borders from the International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Montana. The hour-long program won as best independent as well as a merit award for in the Presentation of Wildlife category.

Produced by David Springbett and Heather MacAndrew, The Monarch will rebroadcast on Discovery Canada on June 19. Meanwhile, Asterisk is shooting a program on sustainable tropical forestry for the Nature of Things.

– Green acres

Roosters did not herald the debut, but Big Red Barn Post in Delta did open with work including a ‘game-day’ package for the B.C. Lions Football club (to air on the Jumbotron display at B.C. Place Stadium) and a music video.

The company – located in a big, red barn – is a division of Advanced Image Communications, says executive producer Ken Malenstyn.