Toronto’s Danforth Studios (formerly pna/Greystone Entertainment) is widening its focus from low-budget sci-fi films geared mostly for foreign markets to include larger-scale features and tv series.

Since opening their doors in 1993, producers Daniel D’Or and Philip Jackson – dubbed ‘the sci-fi guys’ – have been pumping out such films as Shepherd starring

C. Thomas Howell, Men of Means with Michael Pare and The Pawn starring Greg Evigan. While Danforth will continue to make $2-million to $3-million sci-fi films, a branch of the company has been set up to concentrate on bigger-budget features and series, the first of which goes into production this fall.

The 22 one-hour Space Hunter series will start shooting in October or November on a budget of us$800,000 per episode, with France’s Le Sabre on board as coproducer and The Film Works as exec producer. The series will air on Space: The Imagination Station. France Film is distributing internationally.

Jackson will direct and Nelu Girhan penned the script.

D’Or describes the series as hip and edgy, ‘mtv in outer space,’ with music that will appeal to a young audience. Pare (Streets of Fire, Hope Floats) will star as Dante, a social outcast bounty hunter whose crew collects unsavory space creatures and brings them back to the prison planet.

Due to New Brunswick’s generous 40% tax credit, D’Or and Jackson plan to be the first production to shoot in the new studio under construction in Saint John.

Once Space Hunter is in the can, the producers will remain in outer space for another series, Earth Spell. Written by Peter Horton (The Cusp), Earth Spell is a classic adventure about people who ‘escape terrible lives in terrible worlds…it’s a road movie in outer space.’

Back on Earth and also going to camera this fall is the family feature Wolf Song, the company’s first non-sci-fi project.

Wolf Song is the story of a father and his 16-year-old daughter who is angry at the world after losing her mother in an accident a few years earlier. The father meets a woman, whom he takes on a canoe trip along with his daughter and her son. When the children get swept away in the river, they come across a Rambo-type guy (Pare again) on the run from the law who helps the girl deal with her mother’s death.

The shoot will take place in North Bay and D’Or will direct.

Also in the wings for D’Or and Jackson is a large-budget feature film called The Scarlet Crown, a holocaust story that takes place at Auschwitz during the implementation of the final solution. The duo came close to shooting the $10-million picture last year but decided to hold off until the script had been rechecked for historical accuracy.

Still in early development is the $6-million feature The Big Bang, a dark, edgy psychological thriller bordering on sci-fi.

Danforth was the Canadian producer on a recently wrapped American feature, Jack of all Trades, featuring Antonio Sabato Jr., Hunter Tylo, The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.

*More from Epitome

While the cameras continue to roll on season three of Riverdale, Epitome Pictures has a couple of new projects in the works.

Rebellion, based on the book of the same name, is an mow about the Upper Canada rebellion of 1837. Doug Bowie is working on the treatment with Yan Moore. The movie will air on cbc and Epitome president Linda Schuyler says it has series potential.

Epitome recently inked a development deal with ctv and Comedy Network for Borderline, the prodco’s first foray into situation comedy. The series takes place at a border crossing and examines the differences between Americans and Canadians.

According to Schuyler, Epitome will be taking an interesting approach to the sitcom by workshopping the characters and script with performers. ‘Doing a sitcom is a dicey area,’ she says. ‘If we start this way, it will give it a unique beginning.’

As for Riverdale, season three begins airing on cbc next month in a Thursday 7 p.m. slot, then again Sunday at 11 a.m. following Coronation Street and again Monday and Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. in a half-hour format.

Joining the cast is Tom Melissis (Due South), who appeared last season for a brief stint as private investigator Jake Rose, and Jennifer Podemski (The Rez), who moves into the newly revamped role of Michelle Martin.

Alan Erlich and Perry Rosemond are directing.

*Sienna’s slate

Sienna Films execs Julia Sereny and Jennifer Kawaja are planning a trip to Korea in search of the final piece of financing for their next feature film, Priceless.

Sandra Oh (Last Night) stars as Claire, a Seoul woman who makes a fortune selling foreign passports to anyone in search of a new life. ‘It’s a very stylized atmospheric turn on the action genre,’ says producer Sean Carley. ‘It’s a psychological game of cat and mouse.’

Helen Lee wrote the script and will direct the film, which the producers are hoping to have in front of the camera this December.

Dinner At The Edge, an hour-long performance art piece for Bravo! and cbc, is in preproduction and is also scheduled for a December shoot.

Directed by David Neu, the story contains no dialogue and is described by Carley as ‘Cirque du Soleil meets Stomp’ in a restaurant.

Sienna is making its first foray into series production with a half-hour spin-off of its feature New Waterford Girl, which will unspool as part of Perspective Canada at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The ‘irreverent comedy’ is being scripted by the film’s writer, Tricia Fish.

Fish is also working on a feature script based on the novel Fishing Up The Moon, an anti-romantic comedy in the first draft stage.

There are two mows on the slate: one with Dennis Foon (Little Criminals) for cbc called Society’s Child, which they are hoping to shoot next summer, and another for ctv called Floating.

*Production explodes at Dynomight

Ottawa-based Dynomight Cartoons has moved to a bigger space to accommodate a new music facility and a stop-motion studio, which is being put to use on the pilot Combat Snails, a quirky, adult-oriented animation series.

In development is Mushira: Not Very Scary Lizard Friend – a takeoff on Godzilla except the monster is a mere three inches high – which Dynomight president and ceo Diane Craig will be taking to mipcom.

The animation company is also working on the backgrounds for the DreamWorks feature Joseph, the follow-up to The Prince of Egypt.

Its short Untalkative Bunny, which airs on Nickelodeon in the u.s., earned a citation for humor at the New York Animation Festival.

*New prodco

Newly formed Toronto production company SPJ Entertainment is heading to the New York International Film and Video Festival and then to the American Film Institute Film Festival with its first effort, The Acid Test.

Shot on digital video for $50,000 over a three-day period, The Acid Test is the story of a group of friends who reunite after many years in order to pull off a heist. Producer/director Joseph Pryce wrote the script.

Next on the list is Believe, a feature film written and directed by Shawn Hyndman and produced by Pryce and Pat Zolis, which they plan to shoot on 35mm for around $1.3 million.

Believe is an ‘existential love story about a quest for life involving an ancient book.’