Montreal: Muse Entertainment Enterprises and its affiliates, Pebblehut Productions in Toronto and Dogwood Pictures in Vancouver, are expanding on their service deals following last year’s successful merger and launch, and have announced an impressive Canadian content slate for 2000 budgeted at more than $67 million.

The company is also very active in development with properties as diverse as a graffiti-based animated tv/Web series and a psychological crime drama from best-selling novelist William Deverell.

‘I’m not ashamed to say we’re doing service productions,’ says Muse president Michael Prupas. ‘What we’re trying to do for the most part [in proprietary terms] is get shows which are financed substantially either with a sale to a European coproducer or a u.s. broadcaster. We are certainly holding on to Canadian rights and selling to ctv and tmn, and we’re doing a lot of stuff with Citytv. We’re also looking at back-end rights in European territories, a potential for real revenues after five to seven years. And we think there’s some real potential on the French side as well.’

Prupas, an established entertainment lawyer, says Muse also has proprietary interests on selected service business. A case in point, an agreement to put together the financing on 10 motion pictures with Original Voices and l.a. producer David Kirkpatrick (The Whole Shebang, The Opposite of Sex), a former president of production at Paramount Productions. The next feature project for Kirkpatrick ‘in active development’ is Time of Our Lives, with Diane Keaton, Sally Fields and possibly Whoppi Goldberg slated to star. Once the u.s. financing is in place, Prupas says Time will be shot in Montreal.

Additional Montreal action from Muse this summer includes Jackie, a us$16-million service shoot and four-hour miniseries for cbs and international distrib Pearson.

Litinsky joins Muse

Muse has hired well-known production manager and coproducer Irene Litinsky as its new vp production, Montreal.

Litinsky’s production credits include the Cinar/Zukerman miniseries Million Dollar Babies and Heart: The Marilyn Bell Story, the abc miniseries Audrey Hepburn and the PolyGram feature film Waking the Dead, exec produced by Jodie Foster.

Litinsky’s busy agenda includes the $4.7-million Canadian tv movie The Hound of the Baskervilles and the tv movie Cut to the Heart, a service deal for Odyssey Network and Hallmark Entertainment. Later this fall, Muse will service All Souls, a six-hour tv series for Spelling Television and upn in the u.s. It’s budgeted at us$1.6 million per hour.

Prupas hopes to produce or coproduce a French adaptation of the successful ctv/Pax tv series Twice in a Lifetime. Pebblehut’s Marilyn Stonehouse and Deborah Nathan are producing 22 new hours at a cost of close to $25 million.

Also from Pebblehut, the $3-million content comedy-drama movie Doc, starring country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, directed by George Bloomfield and sold to Pax tv. Muse equity partner Pearson Television International is the international sales agent.

Busy Pebblehut

This summer, Pebblehut is shooting Rivals, a $5-million, true-life murder drama from producer Randi Richmond and director Norma Bailey. It’s been sold to TMN: The Movie Network and USA Network, with Pearson selling internationally. The slate gets even busier with Jackie, Ethel Joan: The Women of Camelot, a $20-million, four-hour service production for nbc.

Earlier this spring, Pebblehut wrapped the feature Jason X: Friday the 13th, Part 10, a service deal with New Line Cinema, line produced by Stonehouse.

This past winter, Pebblehut shot the $5-million content tv movie Day Dream Believers: The Story of The Monkees. It’s been picked up by tmn and Citytv in Canada and by VH1 in the u.s., with w.i.n. distributing internationally.

In Vancouver, Dogwood’s 2000 slate includes two feature films. Ignition is an f/x thriller and majority Canada/u.k. coproduction produced by Lisa Richardson and Thomas Hedman of Europa Pictures, London, Eng. and directed by Yves Simoneau. The $30-million film stars Bill Pullman and Lena Olin and is a coproduction with Gary Howsam of GFT Entertainment, Toronto. Lions Gate Films will distribute in both Canada and the u.s.

The second film, also a coproduction with Howsam and the u.k., is Kevin of the North, an $18-million action-comedy about a dogsled race in Alaska, starring Skeet Ulrich and Leslie Nielsen. Bob Spiers (Fawlty Towers) will direct. Dogwood and Richardson are also producing the $5-million Canadian mow Class Warfare and Fiona McKenzie’s independent feature film The Devil Wore a Skirt, a service shoot.

Developments at Muse

As for the development slate, ‘We’re taking the development side of this thing very seriously and we’re investing real hard money,’ says Prupas.

Projects in development at Muse include Hagar the Horrible, a live-action Honeymooners-style comedy based on the syndicated comic strip, with big interest from Germany; the tv movie drama The Mary Pickford Story; and Gold and Cinder, a movie project based on Canada’s victory at the first women’s Olympics in 1928.

Also in development, Mind Games, a one-hour crime series concept (a psychologist turns cop) from noted novelist William Deverell and Dogwood, with interest from ctv. Muse has also acquired rights from Hollywood producer Blake Edwards to the hip ’60s p.i. property Peter Gunn.

Headache Street is an over-the-edge tv and webcasting animation proposal (www.headachestreet.com) from Montreal artist Leanne Levy, while Silent Cry is a feature film in development with director George Mihalka and producer Claude Bonin. It’s an African war story with a terrifying psychological twist, scripted by matinee star Jean Leclerc and Donald Martin.

Sonia Thibault is director of recently launched Muse Distribution International. Michael Sheperd is the company’s full-time development officer, based in Toronto.

Prupas says short- and long-term cash income is important, but no more so than the serious business of building national and international contacts and a solid industry reputation.

‘If you don’t do a decent job of promoting yourself you’re going to suffer in this business,’ he says.