Talk about brand extension. Not only has Sullivan Entertainment launched a new animation house, but none other than Anne of Green Gables: The Animated Series is leading off its five-series slate.

Currently in development for pbs, the 26 half-hour children’s series follows the adventures and delves into the imagination of the irrepressible Anne Shirley. And it reinforces the importance of family, relationships and self-confidence.

Budgeted at $11 million, the series is being produced by Marilyn McAuley and directed by Lilian Andre. Seamus O’Keefe helms the ink-and-paint department.

Writers include Kate Barris, Bruce Robb, Clive Endersby, Laura Kosterski, Stephen Zoller, Patrick Granlesse, Ken Ross, Claire Ross Dunn and supervising story editor Michael MacLennan.

The new series will also feature the voice talents of Bryn McAuley as Anne, Ali Mukaddam as Gilbert Blythe, Patricia Cage as Marilla and Patricia Hamilton, who reprises her role as Rachel Lynde. Jesse Thompson is voice and casting director.

The series, which targets children ages six to 10, is set to air in September.

Sullivan Entertainment International holds worldwide distribution rights.

The new animation house is also in development with the cbc on The Tiny World of Wellington Weevil, a 13-part, half-hour series that combines animation and puppetry.

The series, budgeted at roughly $1.3 million and aimed at the three-to-six demo, follows the journey of Wellington and his tiny friends – Dexter D. Mite, Waterbear, Natalie Erin and Bedbug – as they venture into the magical world under an old rug in a child’s room.

The microscopic characters were created by Jeff Rosen (Theodore Tugboat, Pirates).

Sullivan holds worldwide distribution rights. No air date has been set.

Super Hero is the third project in development. Presold to the bbc and budgeted at $350,000 per half-hour, the 13-part series is Sullivan’s first contemporary, live-action kids series.

Targeted at the eight-to-12 crowd, the series, which mixes in animation sequences, trails 10-year-old Stuart as he battles to protect the world and his hometown residents from unseen evil forces. While waging war on evil, he zaps into his imaginary world and transforms himself into an animated comic book hero.

The pilot has been presold to 14 countries.

Sullivan holds worldwide distribution rights.

Development has also begun on Space Trap, described as a science-fiction dramedy for children ages eight to 12.

Sullivan’s first foray into science fiction, the 13-part, half-hour series follows the adventures of three siblings, Valerie, Frank and Susan, who are accidentally transported to another world where foreign species, including humans, are treated like animals. Subsequently, Frank is sent to a zoo, Susan to a lab, and Valerie is adopted as a family pet. In an effort to escape, Valerie stumbles on an underground network of imprisoned people from different planets.

The 13-part, half-hour series combines live action with animation.

The fifth project in development is Mr. daVinci and Me, a 13-part comedy series for children ages eight to 12.

The series follows Jerry Jerowski, an inquisitive eight-year-old who gets into a school-yard fight. When he is rescued by Mr. daVinci, the school janitor, he is taken to his office in the boiler room to discover a treasure trove of fantastic curiosities. As it turns out, the janitor is a distant relative of Leonardo daVinci and his office contains a doorway that leads to unknown parts of the school as well as the world beyond.

*Wolo, Alex Rose head north with Timberline

L.A.-based companies Wolo Entertainment and Alex Rose Productions are in development with Timberline, a $3.6-million feature film, which boasts a largely Canadian cast, an Ottawa-born writer/director and an Ontario-based plot line.

Inspired by the old-growth logging conflict that erupted in Temagami, Ont., and other places in Canada and the u.s. this past summer, as well as by writer/director and Wolo cofounder Colin Gray’s experience as a tree planter more than 10 years ago, Timberline is an action-adventure story ‘with an eco-terrorist subplot and a dark sense of humor,’ says Gray.

Set in the northern woods, it’s about a young American man who joins his old Canadian school buddy for a tree-planting adventure up around Timmins, Ont. When he arrives, he finds himself and his fellow neopunk tree planters sucked into an old-growth logging dispute, and he later discovers that his good friend is actually working with the ‘eco-terrorists.’

‘The tree-planting culture is so intense in Canada. For so many Canadian kids, it’s a rite of passage – an incredibly rich territory to explore,’ says Gray.

The production is looking to shoot in and around Timmins. The goal is to start preproduction by April and then shoot for six weeks in the summer, says producer and Wolo cofounder Kristine Lacey.

But before locations are settled, Lacey says they’re looking for a Canadian coproduction partner. Already there are at least six Canadian producers considering the project.

Alex Rose (Norma Rae, Frankie & Johnny, Quigley Down Under, The Other Sister) is coproducing and almost the entire cast has been confirmed, including Peter Outerbridge (Better Than Chocolate, Missions to Mars), Paul Popowich (Silverman, Vampires Anonymous), Justin Louis (Battery Park) and Lucy Liu (Ally McBeal).

Timberline marks Gray’s feature film directorial debut.

*Another Breakthrough year ahead

In the past year alone, Breakthrough Films and Television has produced approximately 180 half-hours of original Canadian tv, and the year ahead could prove equally, if not more, fruitful for the ever-burgeoning prodco.

Among a large and varied slate of projects in development, Breakthrough is currently in preprod on the doc series King & Empire for History Television. The six one-hours give voice to Canadian soldier stories from wwi.

‘It follows the war from a personal point of view,’ says producer Ira Levy.

Budgeted at $1.5 million, the series is based on a book series of the same name by Norm Christie and has been financed by the Millennium Fund and the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund.

An additional $100,000 has been budgeted for the accompanying website that is being produced in tandem with the docs, much like the one developed for It Seems Like Yesterday with Rick Mercer. The site will contain a virtual archive of stories.

The series is set for broadcast on Remembrance Day. Knowledge Network, Access and scn have subsequent windows.

Levy and partner Peter Williamson are producing and exec producing.

Remaining on the doc front, the prodco is also in development with Streets of the World, a coprod with u.k.-based Double Exposure and Discovery International. Also for History, the 13-part, half-hour series, budgeted at $2.6 million, is a biography of famous streets of the world, from Halifax to Calcutta.

‘We’ll be telling the stories that make up the history of the street, including the famous and infamous events that happened there,’ says Levy, who along with Williamson, shares producing and exec producing credits with Double Exposure’s Andrew Bethell and Sandy Belfour.

The series is set to air January 2001.

One more noteworthy project is the animated series Children of Chelm, a coprod with Israeli prodco Pitchy Poy.

‘Chelm stories are classic Yiddish folk tales. Aesop’s Fables as told by Woody Allen. That type of sensibility,’ says Levy.

The Tree of Fools is the name of the $400,000 pilot/special, which will be broadcast on ytv in the spring during Passover/Easter. Vision tv has a second window. Tel-Ad is the Israeli broadcaster.

The piece is currently being animated in Israel

The initial animation design was handled by Ottawa’s Funbag Animation. Alex Galatis (The Adventures of Dudley the Dragon) wrote the half-hour and Kervin Faria is animation director.

*A Canadian presence at Slamdance

searching for Roger Taylor, a feature doc from Toronto-based producers Aaron Barnett and Paul Jennison of bitter boy productions, is one of four Canadian films selected to screen at the 2000 Slamdance Film Festival, running from Jan. 22-29 in Park City, Utah.

Searching, budgeted at $250,000, follows Barnett as he seeks to find Duran Duran’s one-time drummer Roger Taylor, who disappeared from the limelight in 1985. Through Barnett’s search for his teen idol, which takes him to the u.k. and the u.s., he explores the New Wave musical phenomenon of the ’80s and investigates the people and events surrounding the birth of the music video.

Interviews include Stewart Copeland (The Police), Gary Numan and Jerry Casale (Devo) and Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet).

Searching, which was selected from more that 2,050 submissions, makes its world premiere at Slamdance.

Also selected were: Barenaked in America, a feature-length ‘rockumentary’ on the Canadian music sensation Barenaked Ladies, directed by Beverly Hills 90210’s Jason Priestley and produced out of Vancouver by Cheryl Teetzel; the short Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Mummy, directed and produced by Ottawa-based Lee Demarbre; and the short Legs, directed and produced by Toronto-based David Ostry.

Slamdance, which bills itself as a festival ‘by filmmakers for filmmakers,’ coincides with the Sundance Film Festival. Since its creation in 1995, it has showcased such films as Cannibal: The Musical, The Daytrippers, 20 Dates and Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows.