Sullivan Entertainment has struck a first-look deal with London, Eng.-based Projector Productions, with which it will coproduce up to five feature films over the next two years.

Announced at Cannes, the agreement brings together one of Canada’s top-tier TV makers and emerging feature film producers with Award-winning British actors Trevor Eve (The Politician’s Wife) and Sharon Maughan, cofounders of Projector Productions (Alice Though the Looking Glass).

‘With our studio facilities and their talent and connections, it is very exciting and fits perfectly with our mandate to pursue U.K. coproductions,’ says Kevin Sullivan, president, Sullivan Entertainment Group.

The deal started off as a five-movie arrangement with Projector, but was ultimately formalized with a first-look agreement that gives Sullivan first stab at co-developing any and all Projector projects over the next two years.

The initial picture to be produced under the new agreement will be Tiger in the Well, a US$15 million film based on Philip Pullman’s best-selling novel. Set during the late 19th century, the story is about a fearless and resourceful young businesswoman, Sally Lockhart – a female James Bond type – who is forced to confront her own ignorance about London’s rampant poverty. When a sinister stranger sues her for divorce and custody of her only daughter, Sally’s idyllic life is ripped from under her and the adventure that follows provides a gripping commentary of the era.

The film, which has yet to attach talent or a director, will go to camera in 2002.

Eve and Sullivan will act as executive producers. Mary Barlow, managing director of Sullivan Entertainment Europe, who brought the project to Sullivan’s attention, will be handling international sales.

The two companies are also coproducing Miss White in New York, written by Charles Wood (Help). Set against the backdrop of 1930s New York, the film tells the story of a beautiful debutante whose life is thrown into turmoil by the arrival of her father’s new wife.

Backed by Channel 4 and The Film Consortium, Miss White will be produced by Eve and Therese Pickard (Wish You Were Here).

Each of the films coproduced under the Sullivan/Projector first-look deal will be in the budget range of US$10 million to US$15 million and will be shot on location in the U.K. and at Sullivan Entertainment’s 4.5 acre studios, the largest studio back lot in Canada.

‘We’ll be striking similar arrangements with other British entities,’ says Sullivan. ‘It’s a way to access more funding for higher budgets and for foreign talent to qualify as part of that financing structure.’

Sullivan was at Cannes, for the first time, hosting the European premiere of its inaugural feature The Piano Man’s Daughter, the gothic drama based on award-winning author Timothy Findley’s best-selling novel. The film, written, directed and produced by Kevin Sullivan, stars Stockard Channing (Six Degrees of Separation), Christian Campbell (Trick) and Wendy Crewson (Air Force One). Whoopi Goldberg and Trudy Grant exec produced.

At Cannes, Sullivan also unveiled some early exclusive footage from Anne: The Animated Movie, the prequel to the famous children’s novel Anne of Green Gables, also adapted by Sullivan.

And while the thrust of Sullivan’s feature film endeavors is in the drama genre, the company is currently negotiating with an undisclosed U.K. company to coproduce another animated movie, one that is fully developed and ready to go.

Since moving its international sales office to London, Eng., Sullivan says it has been actively looking for European coproductions, particularly in the U.K.

Sullivan recently finished writing and is set to direct Famous Last Words, the story of the Windsor family for which he is currently negotiating a coproduction deal with yet another U.K. company.

Sullivan Entertainment owns its own library of more than 400 hours of film and television series produced in its 20 years of operation. *

-www.sullivan-ent.com