It’s been a busy couple of weeks at Toronto’s Atlantis Communications. The company received a series order from a u.s. weblet, secured a $60-million banking facility, and released its first-quarter financials.

upn has ordered 13 episodes of the ensemble period drama series Legacy for the 1998/99 season.

The network, which reaches over 92% of u.s. households, ordered the series based on the pilot that Atlantis shot earlier this spring in Virginia. Atlantis will produce and distribute Legacy worldwide.

Created by writer/producer Chris Abbot (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman), Legacy follows the trials and tribulations of a Kentucky racehorse family during the 1880s.

Atlantis president Lewis Rose says various u.s. and Canadian locations are currently being scouted for the $1.2-million per episode series, skedded for a summer shoot. Canadian broadcasters will be approached.

Atlantis is now set to deliver over $200 million worth of production totaling 145 hours in ’98.

The 20-year-old company has also completed what it calls ‘the first fully committed production and distribution banking facility of its kind in Canada.’

The five-year, $60-million agreement is syndicated with the Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto Dominion Bank and will be used to finance Atlantis’ production and distribution requirements for the 1998 and 1999 production seasons.

The agreement will replace Atlantis’ previous production banking arrangements, which required project-by-project financing commitments. The new facility is in addition to Atlantis’ other lines of credit which total approximately $50 million.

Prior to securing the new line of credit, Atlantis also announced its first-quarter results, posting earnings that were 80% higher than the first quarter of 1997, due in part to the increased margins from television programs such as Gene Roddenberry’s Earth Final Conflict and Psi Factor. Total revenue for the quarter was $65.6 million, up from $31.9 million in 1997.

tv production and distribution accounted for $57.8 million in the 1998 first-quarter, while broadcasting revenues made up $6.1 million.