Kentucky-based Namesake Entertainment is in Toronto shooting the $17.4-million feature Left Behind, a coproduction with Cloud Ten Pictures.

Produced by Hollywood veteran Ralph Winter (X-Men) and directed by Victor Sarin (Sea People), Left Behind is based on the best-selling book series of the same name by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. It is described as an apocalyptic, X-Files-style drama wherein millions of people around the world suddenly disappear, leaving their clothes, wedding rings, glasses and shoes in crumpled piles. Mass confusion hits and hysteria breaks out while cars suddenly veer out of control, fires erupt and the living are fearfully stunned by what becomes known as ‘the rapture’ – the first sign of the end of time.

The film, set for theatrical release by February 2001, stars Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains), Chelsea Noble (Growing Pains), Clarence Gilyard (Walker: Texas Ranger), Brad Johnson (the Marlboro Man) and Canadian actress Janaya Stephens (Relic Hunter).

Exec producer Paul Lalonde, who cofounded Toronto-based Cloud Ten with co-exec producer and brother Peter Lalonde, cowrote the script with u.s. scribe Alan B. McElroy.

Left Behind started shooting May 12 and will run until June 3.

Cloud Ten holds production and North American distribution rights, while Namesake, helmed by cofounders Joe Goodman and Bobby Neutz, holds the book rights.

*Weaver threads into features

David Weaver, former head of drama at Barna-Alper Productions and creative analyst for the Ontario Film Development Corporation, soon to be known as the Ontario Media Development Corp., recently sold a feature script, Eliza Fraser, to New York-based heavyweight producer Michael Hauseman (Man on the Moon, People Vs. Larry Flynt).

Several years back when Weaver first wrote the script, which is based on a real-life story set in Australia in the 1830s, there was some interest from Miramax which had just completed The Piano. When that interest waned, Weaver hooked up with commercial director Tobias Meinecke, an old film-school mate from Columbia University.

Meinecke helped develop the script, optioned it, attached himself as director (his first feature) and most recently took it to Hauseman, who committed to produce it through his New York prodco Cinehaus.

Hauseman, who produces all of Milos Forman’s films going back as far as Ragtime and Amadeus and is currently producing Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, has an output deal with mgm that includes taking on a handful of low-budget (us$15 million to us$20 million) films. Weaver says his screenplay will likely be one of them.

The film tells the true story of Eliza Fraser, the wife of a sea captain whose ship went down on the Great Barrier Reef. One of the only survivors, Eliza loses the baby she was carrying and is taken captive by a local cannibal tribe who use her as a wet nurse. After several months she is rescued by an escaped convict. In return, she promises to get him a pardon for his sentence and on their journey they fall in love…

The film was recently shopped around Cannes for presales. Meantime, Weaver is waiting for the green light on his feature directorial debut Century Hotel, a $750,000 project he cowrote with Bridget Newson.

Produced by Victoria Hirst, with Sandra Oh attached to star, Motion International is distributing and Citytv is broadcasting.

Also, Weaver’s Moon Palace, an ofdc/Showcase Television Calling Card short, is currently in sound post. To be delivered in the fall, the short was written and directed by Weaver and produced by Tashi Bieler.

*Canada makes Popstars too

Taking the cue and buying the rights from Sportsworld, the Australian producers of Popstars, Toronto-based Lone Eagle Entertainment is creating its own Popstars, a 13-part, half-hour, primetime docusoap that will chronicle the real-life selection, creation and development of a hit female pop group.

Beginning this summer, thousands of girls across Canada will audition in a mega-casting call – which is when the shooting will begin. After the girls are chosen, the series will follow the grooming process, the release of the group’s cd and video, the tour and the girls’ lives after they become pop stars.

The Australian series launched the pop group Bardot, whose first single recently hit number one on the Australian charts.

Global Television is set to debut the Canadian series in January 2001. ‘The series promises to be a spellbinding enterprise, capturing all the behind-the-scenes drama and allure of the making of a real-life all-girl pop group,’ says Loren Mawhinney, vp of Canadian production for Global.

Lone Eagle president Michael Geddes is exec producing. Each half hour is budgeted at roughly $50,000.

A director is yet to be announced.

*Lopez plays cop in Angel Eyes

Low-cut, high-priced actress gone pop star Jennifer Lopez is in Toronto lending star power to the feature Angel Eyes, produced by Franchise Pictures in association with Warner Bros.

Directed by Luis Mandoki and costarring Jim Caviezel (Frequency) and Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman), the romantic drama revolves around a Chicago police officer, played by Lopez, who, under life-and-death circumstances meets and falls in love with a mysterious man through whom she is forced to deal with the skeletons of her past.

Franchise head Elie Samaha is producing. Mark Canton, Don Carmody and Andrew Stevens are exec producing. The dp is Polish-born Piotr Sobicinski, Academy Award nominee for Three Colours: Red.

Shooting began in Toronto May 8 and runs until mid-July. Warner Bros. has North American distribution and Franchise holds the rights for the rest of the world.

*Nelvana brings more comic strips to life

Following in the wake of Bob and Margaret, Nelvana is in production on yet another primetime, adult animated series that brings a large dose of irreverence and edginess to the small screen.

Like its two immediate predecessors, Committed and Pelswick, The Kid, a three-part, half-hour miniseries, is appropriated from a syndicated comic strip.

Based on renowned cartoonist Gahan Wilson’s Nuts, appearing in National Lampoon, Playboy and The New Yorker, The Kid is an irreverent take on childhood’s most prevalent fears that uses cutting-edge humor and an adult sensibility as a comic reminder of what we tend to forget most about childhood.

Nelvana has put together an all-star cast of voices to bring The Kid to life, including William Shatner, Andrea Martin, Jennifer Tilly, Lolita Davidovich, Ed Asner and Eugene Levy.

Created by Wilson, who serves as visual executive consultant, with Emmy Award-winning writer/producer Stan Daniels (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi) who serves as exec producer, the series, currently midway through production, is for broadcast on TMN-The Movie Network, Super Ecran and Showtime (u.s.) in late 2000/early 2001.

Patrick Loubert is co-exec producing and Jocelyn Hamilton is supervising producer.

Quads is the next adult, animated, primetime series in development, based on another comic strip, When Quads Won’t Leave, from Pulitzer-prize cartoonist John Callahan (Pelswick).

Comically irreverent, Quads will be the only show on tv in which a ragtag group of rebels, united by their common flaws, band together to deal with a world that doesn’t understand them. And it will also be the only animated show whose four principal characters have only four hands, four working legs and five eyes amongst them.

*Birch commits to fostering Canadian comedic talent

Comedic prodco Laughing Matters, helmed by Brad Birch, former exec producer at The Comedy Network, is in the process of exec producing the first of four self-created pilots for Comedy, all slated for this year.

The first, Teresa tv (working title), which wrapped shooting on May 16 in Toronto, is a character-driven comedy series pilot that sees Second City alumna Teresa Pavlinek (History Bites, Improv Heaven and Hell) taking on the persona of three signature characters: an administrative assistant for a large accounting firm, prone to wearing socks and running shoes with her conservative suits; a heroin-chic supermodel named Gigi; and a male Cabbagetown bartender who’s also a recovering alcoholic trying to get back on the dating circuit.

The low-budget series is cowritten by Pavlinek and Ralph Chapman, directed by John Karolidis, produced by Fergus Barnes and exec produced by Birch.

The next three pilots for Comedy are: The Lonny Jerome Show, starring Paul O’Sullivan; A Day’s Work, a mockumentary that tracks days in the lives of people with pathetic jobs; and Thumb Nails, a ‘vehicle’ to elevate the profile of character comic actors from across Canada, who are each given four minutes to showcase his/her character.