Rhombus Media is hot on the development trail these days with half a dozen features and its second series.

While producer Danny Iron says the company is not committing to ongoing series production as it produces its first six-parter, Foreign Objects, Rhombus is currently in development with the cbc on its second and untitled series, a comedy/drama about a small-town Ontario Shakespearean threatre company.

Susan Coyne (The Broad Side) and Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall) are cowriting the six-part, half-hour series, which is being coproduced by Canadian writer Tecca Crosby.

On the feature front, Rhombus’ Barbara Willis Sweete (Leporello) is making her feature film directorial debut with Perfect Pie.

Based on the Judith Thompson play of the same name, the screenplay, also written by Thompson, tells the dramatic story of two childhood friends who reunite as adults and relive the events of their past.

Budgeted at roughly $3 million, and to be shot in and around Toronto in winter/spring 2001, the film, now in the final draft phase, is produced by Iron and Niv Fichman.

Another book-based feature in the late stages of development is the adaptation of Carol Shields’ The Stone Diaries, being written by Semi Chellas (The Life Before This) and to be directed by Cynthia Scott (Company of Strangers).

To be shot next year across Canada and in Scotland, the feature, which Iron says will likely turn into a coproduction, has a budget of roughly $6 million to $10 million. It is in the final draft stage.

The Boyd Gang, based on the true tales of the 1950s Toronto hold-up gang turned media stars, is being written by Toronto-based newcomer Nathan Morlando.

Also in the final stage of development, the feature has a mid-range budget, with a director yet to be announced.

Blindness, based on the Nobel Prize-winning book by Portuguese author Jose Saramago, is in the early stages of development, with Don McKellar (Twitch City) writing and directing.

The screenplay tells the fable of a small city beset by a plague of blindness, which leads to the ultimate collapse of society. In the early phase of development, the film will be shot in Toronto sometime late next year.

Finally, Tuscanini (working title), a biopic of world-famous conductor Arturo Tuscanini, is being cowritten by Rhombus principal Larry Weinstein (The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin) and Italian novelist Francesca Marciano.

The film, in the early stages of development, is a coproduction of Rhombus and Italian prodco Mikado Films (partner on The Red Violin).

*AAC goes to camera on The Associates

The Associates, the newest headlining, one-hour dramatic series in ctv’s 2000/01 lineup, has started shooting in Toronto.

An Alliance Atlantis Communications production, exec produced by Traders’ cocreator Alyson Feltes, the series chronicles the stormy and bizarre experiences of five twentysomething legal neophytes, whose characters are exposed and developed as they defend cases in the Canadian court system for the Toronto office of an international law firm. Their professional struggles with politics, nepotism and sexism routinely crash head-on with their personal struggles with self-confidence, sexuality, jealousy and betrayal, making for a wild ride of tragic and comic proportions.

Pegged by aac as a ‘big-budget Canadian series,’ the 13-part drama is coproduced, cocreated and cowritten by Edmonton-based former lawyers Steve Blackman and Greg Ball.

Working at their respective law offices by day and on their scripts by night, the duo drew on their experiences as articling students and as first-year lawyers when they began to develop The Associates.

They have since retired from their respective positions to work full-time on the new series, coproduced under the auspices of their Edmonton-based prodco Fire On The Mountain Productions.

Brian Dennis (Foolish Heart) is producing the series, which stars Gabriel Hogan (Peter Benchley’s Amazon), newcomer Shaun Benson, Tamara Markle (Bad As I Wanna Be: The Dennis Rodman Story), Jennie Raymond (Pit Pony) and Demore Barnes (Second String).

Scott Smith (rollercoaster) and David Woo are attached to the first two eps.

Production began in Toronto Aug. 7 and runs until Dec. 15.

aac has worldwide distribution and merchandising rights to the series, which debuts on ctv in January.

In other news, aac is coproducing a new one-hour crime series with CBS Productions in association with the series developer, Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

The 13-part series, c.s.i., which began filming in l.a. on Aug. 2, chronicles the fast-paced lives of a passionate team of Crime Scene Investigators (c.s.i.) in Las Vegas who are trained to solve crimes the old-fashioned way – by examining every bit of evidence.

Series producer William Petersen (To Live and Die in l.a.) doubles as Gil Grissom, head of the program’s forensic team.

Also starring in the series are Marg Helgenberger (China Beach), Gary Dourdan (A Different World), Nick Stokes (er), Jorja Fox (West Wing) and Paul Guilfoyle (L.A. Confidential).

aac distributes the cbs catalogue in Canada and has produced network series Due South for cbs. aac has also produced series for first-run syndication by cbs, including Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal and Peter Benchley’s Amazon, as well as cbs miniseries and movies including Borrowed Hearts: A Holiday Romance, Joan of Arc and Forget Me Never.

Exec producers on c.s.i. are Jerry Bruckheimer (Con Air), Ann Donahue (Picket Fences) and Carol Mendelson (Melrose Place). Anthony Zuiker (The Hoodfellas’ Project) and James Hart (Chicago Hope) are co-exec producing.

The series will premier on cbs this fall.

aac has worldwide distribution, excluding the u.s., where cbs is distributing.

*Norstar coproduces $20M feature

Toronto-based Norstar Filmed Entertainment and coproduction partner Rafford Films of the u.k. have gone into production on their third feature film together, The Fourth Angel.

Starring Oscar winner Jeremy Irons (Lolita), Forest Whitaker (Waiting to Exhale), Jason Priestley (Beverly Hills 90210) and Charlotte Rampling (Wings of the Dove), along with Canadian talent Kal Weber, Lois Maxwell, Briony Glassco and Garrick Hagon, the $20-million thriller, based on the Robin Hunter novel of the same name, tells the story of a thoughtful and civilized man who is driven to extremes after seeing his family gunned down in an apparent terrorist attack.

The film is directed by John Irvin (Shiner) and the screenplay was adapted by Rafford’s Allan Scott, who also serves as coproducer with Norstar chair Peter Simpson.

Being shot in London, Eng. from Aug. 14 to Oct. 6, the film is the first of six that Norstar and Munich-based New Legend Media, which is handling distribution in Germany, Italy, Spain and France, have agreed to cofinance.

Seville Pictures in distributing in Canada, Artisan is handling the u.s. and B Sky B is distributing in the u.k.

Norstar holds rights for the remaining territories and recently hired Peter Elson’s Global Cinema Group to sell the feature internationally.

Grizzly Falls and Regeneration were the first two films on which Norstar and Rafford partnered.

Rafford is not included in Norstar’s production/distribution deal with New Legend.

*Frieberg moves east to produce three new films

Producer Camelia Frieberg (The Five Senses) has relocated Palpable Pictures to Nova Scotia from Toronto to develop and produce three new feature films.

The Traveling Medicine, which will be shot in Cape Breton, is being written and will be directed by Toronto-based scribe Amnon Buchbinder.

Taking place in the not-so-distant future, the film illuminates a world where people are forcibly addicted to drugs that create an uncontrollable population. When a small group of renegades attempts to escape the epidemic, a clash between worlds erupts.

Although a seemingly obvious sci-fi/futuristic film, Frieberg says, ‘It’s going to take some serious thinking to shoot a science fiction movie for under $30 million.’

The Poor Farm, cowritten by East Coast novelist Lance Woolaver and Ron Foley MacDonald based on Woolaver’s book of the same name, is a 1960s period piece about the now-obsolete institutions that once housed what the country considered its undesirables.

The budget is estimated at roughly $5 million and the film will be shot in Nova Scotia.

The third film, based on Woolaver’s play The World Without Shadows, tells the sweet and tragic life story of East Coast artist Maud Lewis, who married a man from a poor farm and while living in poverty with him created world-renowned art.

Palpable Productions is one of three prodcos this year to receive funding from the Cogeco Program Development Fund’s Theatrical Feature Film Development Program.

The program supports the work of at least three feature films in development over the next year at companies that have an established feature film track record.

Halifax’s imX communications and Quebec’s Les Films Vision 4 were the other two recipients.

*Tasty bits

Production is underway on 65 half-hours of Ken Kostick & Company, a new primetime, daily cuisine-meets-entertainment series, set to debut Oct. 2 on The Food Network.

The new series features Ken Kostick (What’s For Dinner) as he welcomes an array of notable chefs, celebrities and unwitting audience members to join him as he prepares restaurant-quality meals that can be reproduced at home.

Produced by AJE Productions and exec produced by Amanda Enright and Kostick, the series boasts a lineup of guest celebs for its inaugural season, which includes Gary Coyle from New York’s Tavern on the Green, Centro’s Marc Thuet, Spago’s Gina DeCew and North 44’s Mark McEwan.

‘Our goal is to capture the dynamic of who is in the studio on that particular day. We’re not about trying to produce a perfect show, we just want Ken Kostick & Company to be perfectly entertaining,’ says Kostick. *