FLYING high off the success of Popstars, Lone Eagle Entertainment is hitting the road again with two more reality series: Popstars II and Search for a Supermodel.

‘We are Canada’s reality company,’ says Lone Eagle president Michael Geddes.

Second only to Hockey Night in Canada in domestic ratings, the first season of Popstars, which recently wrapped on Global TV, won its timeslot every week it aired. Meanwhile, Sugar Jones, the band that was formed in the show, just hit number one nationally with its first single.

‘It is just another group born from a public process,’ says Geddes, who looks forward to traveling cross-country in August, cameras in tow, in search of the next Canadian Popstars. This time, however, it will be a boy-girl band, one of the reasons Geddes expects the turnout for the open call to be at least three times as big as last year’s, which attracted 4,000 girls to try out for five spots.

Once the series is over, Lone Eagle’s musical partner Universal takes over, with the prodco sharing in some of the album sales. ‘This is the new way to make music and to launch an act in this country,’ says Geddes.

Producer Maria Pimentel and director Joseph Blasioli are returning for the second season – 13 half-hours, budgeted at roughly $100,000 each, to air in early 2002 on Global.

In the first season, the five girls shared an apartment and Geddes says, ‘If we go that way again, we’re going to do more reality with round-the-clock cameras in the apartment.’

The show’s website, www.popstars.ca has had more than three million hits since its launch last February.

Lone Eagle distributes the series internationally.

The company’s success on Popstars has raised its profile internationally. ‘Since Popstars, we’ve had a lot of interest from U.S. agents in future U.S. service deals,’ says Geddes. ‘We’re now in a position to do coproductions and service, but not in drama, although we’re staying in primetime.’

Another primetime reality series the Toronto house is developing is Search for a Supermodel, an eight-part, half-hour docusoap that follows the Supermodel of the World competition, held nationally to identify and promote the next generation of Canadian supermodels.

The Ford Modeling Group has granted Lone Eagle exclusive access, including background and behind-the-scenes coverage, to produce the series.

Like Popstars, the series, budgeted at just under $100,000 per ep, will be happening in close to 20 countries simultaneously, culminating in Miami for the final competition. ‘It ends up like a Miss Universe thing,’ says Geddes.

Bought from Australian format distrib SMG, which launched the series at MIP-TV, Search for a Supermodel begins shooting in July and will be part of Global’s fall sked.

Geddes is exec producing with Pimentel running the show. A director has yet to be named.

AAC dramas expose

real-life hate crimes

ALLIANCE Atlantis is busy in Toronto shooting adaptations of two true stories for two U.S. networks.

The Matthew Shepard Story, produced in association with Cosmic/Clearlight Pictures for NBC, went to camera May 5.

Starring Canadian up-and-comer Shane Meier (The Call of the Wild) along with Oscar nominees Stockard Channing (Six Degrees of Separation) and Sam Waterston (The Killing Fields), the film dramatizes the tragic story of college student Matthew Shepard. In 1998, the young man was lured from a bar and driven to a remote field where he was beaten, burned and tied to a fence before being left to die in sub-freezing temperatures. The two men charged with his murder said they targeted Shepard because he was gay. His parents have subsequently devoted their lives to fighting hate crimes.

The film, written by John Wierick (Bopha!) and Jacob Krueger and directed by Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) is being made with full support of the Shepard family.

Clara George (Cruel Justice) is producing with exec producers Peter Sussman and Ed Gernon (Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows) and Academy Award-winner Goldie Hawn.

Alliance Atlantis holds worldwide distribution.

The film wraps May 30.

Four-hour miniseries Salem Witch Trials, starring Kirstie Alley (Veronica’s Closet), Henry Czerny (Haven), Gloria Reuben (ER), Rebecca De Mornay (Hand that Rocks the Cradle) and Shirley MacLaine (Terms of Endearment), went to camera in Toronto May 8 and will continue to June 30.

An AAC production, in association with Spring Creek Productions, for CBS, the miniseries follows the true story of one of the darkest chapters in American history – the notorious reign of terror that swept through Salem, MA in 1692, when thousands of women, deemed witches, were burned to death.

‘The story is gripping, the cast is superb and it is great to see Alliance Atlantis teaming with CBS again to recreate such a historical event as we did with Joan of Arc,’ says Sussman, president of AA television production.

John Ryan (Life With Judy Garland) is producing.

Maria Nation (A Season of Miracles) wrote the original screenplay and four-time Emmy winner Joe Sargent (A Lesson Before Dying) is directing.

Sussman and Gernon are exec producing, along with Paula Weinstein (The Perfect Storm).

AA has worldwide distribution.

Whizbang moves

into its own

WHIZBANG Films, headed by Frank Siracusa and Paul Gross, is expanding its focus from service production to proprietary projects.

‘Through our contacts with foreign and domestic service work, we’ve positioned ourselves as a production company that can service, produce and secure the sale of our products,’ says Siracusa.

Recently, the prodco was approached by West Coast producer Lorne MacPherson to coproduce Albert Johnson: The Mad Trapper, a story both Whizbang and MacPherson had coincidentally pitched CTV at the same time.

A Canadian story made into a movie by Hollywood in the 1950s, the film chronicles the true story of Albert Johnson, a legendary trapper who by keeping silent and mysterious, spurred an endless array of folklore about him.

When a group of Mounties eventually approached his cabin, he shot at them, killing one and igniting a massive Mountie chase through the mountains to Alaska, where he was finally shot down.

With Gross’ expanding career in writing/directing/producing/acting, he is likely to wear a few hats in the film, but so far nothing has been confirmed.

What has been confirmed is Whizbang’s relationship to U.S. channel Animal Planet, for which the Toronto house is producing a bunch of MOWs about adults’ relationships with animals.

The first two are already underway. Meteor’s Tale, adapted by Paul Quarrington (Whale Music) from the book of the same name, tells the story of a man who becomes a social recluse after returning home from war. He adopts a hunting dog that can no longer hunt because of his fear of guns and the two help each other overcome their respective demons.

Orly Adelson Productions has U.S. distribution and Animal Planet retains first window, with Whizbang holding all other Canadian and international rights.

Siracusa is producing.

Tame the Wild Sky, exec produced by Jerry Abrams, is about a fatherless family that moves from San Francisco to a small town in Washington State, where the 16-year-old son is having problems adjusting, until one day he finds a rare hawk from Alaska that’s been shot. In nursing the bird back to health and helping it fly home, the boy becomes respected by his peers and emerges out of his slump.

Both films are budgeted at US$2 million and will go to camera in and around Toronto before December.

The company has also recently been approached by director/DOP Henry Less of The Players Film Company to adapt an Internet program for TV.

The Internet property follows a group of young adults who have been dropped in Costa Rica to survive with $500 each – a kind of exotic, urban Survivor.

Called Globe Monkeys, the TV series would put a bit of twist on the original idea. ‘It’ll be less soap opera, more competition,’ says Siracusa, who has pitched the show to Global, CTV and Alliance Atlantis, which has expressed interest.

Lewis takes year

leave from CounterSpin

HOST Avi Lewis is taking a year sabbatical from CBC Newsworld’s daily flagship currents affairs program CounterSpin.

‘It was the hardest decision of my life to step off the wild ride of daily debate television,’ he says. ‘But after more than 500 shows in three years, I realize that a host cannot live on adrenaline alone. I’m looking forward to revisiting some of the content of CounterSpin in a different gear. I’m thinking about writing a book.’

Meantime, the series will be part of the new CBC schedule this fall in the form of special ‘town hall’ editions produced from various parts of Canada. Lewis will host CounterSpin Sunday on the main network and Newsworld through the fall and then he will take off for a year.

The search for a new host will soon begin.