The CTV Network has purchased the Canadian broadcast rights to Regina-based Minds Eye Pictures’ $40-million film The Englishman’s Boy.

The feature has reached its $250,000 development budget with the combined financing of ctv, Telefilm Canada and Saskfilm. Although neither talent nor a director are attached yet, Minds Eye ceo Kevin DeWalt confirms that John N. Smith (Dangerous Minds, The Boys of St. Vincent) is among the half-dozen directors calling on the project along with two u.s. companies interested in investing. ‘But we’re not looking to sell the farm early,’ says DeWalt.

Guy Vanderhaege, author of the Governor General’s Award-winning Canadian novel, is penning the screenplay, with the first draft expected before the end of the year. DeWalt expects to attach a director soon after delivery and then will look at financial partners.

In other news out of Minds Eye, the company will open its Los Angeles office Oct. 15. With between 20 and 35 projects in development, DeWalt says Minds Eye doesn’t want to focus on service production.

‘There are a lot of projects coming to us because we’re the newest province with a tax credit. But rather than having the Americans come to us with their projects, we’d rather go to them with ours and then suggest they come to Saskatchewan to shoot.’

Minds Eye’s next project is a $4.5-million coproduction with Germany’s Condor Films. zdf in Germany and WIC Western International Communications in Canada have signed broadcast rights to the film. The title is a work in progress, but DeWalt describes it as a ‘contemporary Midnight Express for tv.’ The project marks the first time zdf has agreed to do an English-language version first, after winning its time slot with ratings for Minds Eye’s The Lost Daughter last year.

Minds Eye is producing $15-million to $20-million worth of production this year, more than doubling last year’s output of $7 million. Among completed projects are the $3.2-million Stranger in Town for Showtime and the comedy Inconvenienced, a $5.5-million pic for Trimark in the u.s.

Debuting in October at mipcom will be Minds Eye International, the new distribution division of Minds Eye which formed last month after it absorbed half the assets of Evergreen Releasing. (The other half remains with Toronto-based The Film Works). Minds Eye International distributes 75 hours of tv product. It currently has two feature films in its catalogue.