Knightscove Entertainment, an upstart Toronto-based producer/ financier, has acquired an insurance-backed bond issue of $50 million, which it will use to produce and finance 10 to 20 family films with total budgets of $100 million over the next four years.

The mission is to in-house produce, coproduce and exec produce live-action children’s films that embody the ‘kids and animals versus nature’ theme, says ceo Leif Bristow, a former vp at Devine Entertainment. ‘We look at stuff like Free Willy, Big Red and Old Yeller, although we’d also look at new versions of films like Mighty Ducks and Karate Kid.’

After more than a year of negotiations, the new company sealed the multimillion-dollar deal this month with three unnamed international insurance partners – a London, Eng.-based lead insurer and two re-insurers, one based in the u.s., the other in Bermuda.

‘It’s the first time an insured note of this type has been issued in the Canadian market,’ says Jerry Marriott, vp securitization, Nesbitt Burns, which structured the Knightscove transaction and co-underwrote it with CIBC World Markets.

Knightscove will fund up to 70% of a film. Budgets can be as high as $15 million, although most projects will be between $4 million and $8 million. ‘People will come to us instead of the banks. We will look at the gaps…and our insurance partners [will] provide the insurance portion of the offering,’ says Bristow.

Wherever possible, he assures, ‘we’ll do cavco projects.’

The company has also opened shop in l.a., where Robert Schwartz, head of production operations, is stationed.

Bristow, along with head of finance Murray Marchant, a former Astral Communications exec, helm the Toronto headquarters.

To date, Knightscove has looked at roughly 80 scripts, with about eight in some stage of development, ‘but we shouldn’t be looked at as a development fund,’ says Bristow.

Its first two projects, one in-house and one coprod, should be ready for production by April 2000, but Bristow remains tightlipped about the details.

Knightscove will hold distribution rights for most of its product and is currently in discussion with a handful of distributors around the world to set up sub-distribution deals in advance, Bristow adds.