Montreal: Blackwatch Productions has signed a six-pack movie production deal with Saban International. The deal follows a late August announcement that the company’s expanding distribution division, Blackwatch Releasing, and Trimark Pictures in the u.s. have signed an output agreement for Trimark’s home video and tv slate in Canada.

Bill Mariani, Blackwatch Communications president, says the deal with Saban (a unit of Fox Family) ‘signifies that we’re a company that do can this slate. We took this on because it gives us a chance to multiple-produce films [and] feed product to our distribution line as we’re gearing up for our own productions. This announcement, on top of the Sony and Trimark [output deals], should send a signal to the investment community that we are a company the Americans are looking at.’

The entire Saban lineup has to be delivered within 18 months, with the first, Artifical Lies, going into production in Montreal Sept. 13. Blackwatch picks up Canadian and u.s. rights in the deal, with Saban holding international. The films are budgeted in the us$1.5-million to us$2-million range.

In a separate arrangement with Trimark, Blackwatch picked up Canadian rights to the theatrical film Joe the King, which will be released following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Sept. 9-18. In June, Blackwatch signed an all-rights agreement for Canada with Sony Pictures Classics. Both the Trimark and spc franchises were held by recently sold Behaviour Distribution, inherited from the old Malofilm library.

Artificial Lies will be directed by Rodney Gibbons and stars Jack Wagner, Stewart Bick and Daphne Zuniga. The producer is Kim Berlin. Saban picked up the international rights based on a 50% split with Blackwatch.

Signal to investors

Through a distribution-financing arrangement with a Canadian pension fund manager, Blackwatch is also committed to delivering eight additional films in the next 24 months.

‘We’re definitely setting ourselves up as a company with the ability to raise cash,’ says Mariani. ‘I’m about to announce that we have hired someone from the financing community, a person who has raised hundreds of millions, a vp corporate finance for a major Montreal company.’

Berlin, president of Blackwatch Productions, says two of the Saban titles will be delivered by Christmas. ‘I’m looking to wrap this deal up by the end of July. That will get me six films. It’s a lot like episodic television where you shoot, prep, shoot,’ she says.

Crew availability is a ‘tough’ issue, but Berlin says a good director or producer can help bring in, and keep, the right crew.

Berlin says the upside on the deal is the eventual u.s. sale – cast and story being the primary contingencies – worth anywhere from us$250,000 to us$650,000. ‘That’s the magic of it all. Make it [at] $2 million so that it looks $5 million.’

Berlin says she and Francesca Visconti and vp production Arden Ryshpan have read as many as 400 scripts in-house. ‘There is a gem out there and I’m going to find it,’ she says.