David Cronenberg has wrapped shooting in London, Eng. on his latest psychological thriller of disturbing repute. Spider, which shot for three weeks overseas, is now gearing up to cross the Atlantic to begin its final five-week shoot in Toronto.

A $10-million Canada/U.K. coproduction, the film, produced by Cronenberg, Catherine Bailey and Samuel Hadida, is based on Patrick McGrath’s (The Grotesque) 1991 novel, which the author also adapted for the screen. Set in East End London in the 1970s and the present day, the film tells the story of a deeply disturbed young boy named Spider who sees his father brutally murder his mother and replace her with a prostitute. Convinced he will be murdered next, he hatches an insane plan that ends in tragedy and lands him in prison.

Years later, the adult Spider is released into a halfway house where he stops taking his medication and spirals into a fresh state of madness.

Cronenberg is collaborating once again with his team of Genie Award-winning talent, including cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, editor Ron Sanders and costume designer Denise Cronenberg.

Pebblehut Productions president Marilyn Stonehouse is the Toronto shoot’s production manager.

Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient) stars in the title role of Spider, with 10-year-old newcomer Bradley Hall playing Spider as a young boy. Other cast include Miranda Richardson (Chicken Run), Gabriel Byrne (Enemy of the State), Lynn Redgrave (Gods & Monsters) and John Neville (The Fifth Element).

Spider is financed by Capitol Films, Artists Independent Network and Grosvenor Park, as well as Metropolitan Films and Helkon SK, which is distributing the film in the U.K.

Alliance Atlantis’ Odeon Films has all Canadian rights to the film.

Luc Roeg is exec producing.

The film wrapped in London Aug. 18 and shoots in Toronto Aug. 22 to Sept. 22.

Hawtin jumps from teens to boomers

Creating edutainment may be yesterday’s news, but how many producers are turning students into filmmakers in two days flat then following them all over the world as they take their summer studies abroad?

In Road Scholars, a new series for YTV, executive producer Jane Hawtin, along with her team at Electric Entertainment, has done just that.

The 13-part, half-hour series, produced in conjunction with travel/ education company Blythe & Co., put digital cameras in the hands of eight students, who then documented their experiences in the various countries they were sent to for their privileged summer studies. Chronicling the highs and lows of making friends in strange places, the series is meant to capture the history and beauty of each exotic locale, while drawing viewers into the intimate stories of the student hosts.

In addition to each student’s visual account, small crews were also sent out to the featured countries – England, France, Germany, Kenya, the Galapagos Islands, Costa Rica, Greece and Turkey – ‘to get all the beauty shots.’

‘When I went to YTV, I sold them on the idea with a paragraph,’ says Hawtin, who stumbled on the concept when her daughter Amber came home asking to be sent to Oxford for the summer for a high school credit.

Amber is one of the students featured in the series, only instead of Oxford she was based in Kenya where Hawtin and a small camera crew visited in July.

After casting the eight Canadian students, four of whom were culled from Electric’s limited series Teen Tribute TV (which aired on Global in June and July), the 17- and 18-year-olds were subjected to a two-day training program in which they were taught, among other things, how to use the camera, how to get a good shot and what to shoot.

The series, confirms Hawtin, crosses over such genres as children’s, travel/adventure, education and reality TV, making it a suitable product for almost any of the emerging specialty services. It is also an original format that could be sold internationally as a franchise, says Hawtin, who co-exec produces the series with Electric co-principal Paul Osborn. In addition to Hawtin, field producers include Sandra MacEachran and Kathleen Monk.

Another series on the Electric plate is My Escape for Prime Television. The 26-part, half-hour series showcases a batch of babyboomers and their unlikely hobbies.

Hosted by Charmain Emerson and Tom Otto, each episode is broken down into three segments: The Creators, The Collectors and The Doers.

Toronto Sun cartoonist Andy Donato, for example, is featured in one of The Creators’ segments as a maker of golf putters in his spare time.

Ola Sturik is producing, with Hawtin and Osborn exec producing.

The series started shooting across Canada in June and will air on Prime in October.

Finally, Power and Glory is a one-hour doc pilot on high-powered Canadian entrepreneurs, produced by Lynn Pickering for broadcast on Global in January 2002.

The pilot episode, shot in April and May, chronicles the Molson family.

The Notorious Mrs. Dick drives Torso home on CTV

Torso, the gruesome story of Evelyn Dick, the infamous Hamilton, Ont. sex kitten who was charged with her husband’s brutal ‘torso’ murder in 1946, kicks off CTV’s literature series and anchors the network’s fall 2001 movie lineup, along with its new companion documentary, The Notorious Mrs. Dick.

The one-hour doc, which follows the MOW’s airing Sept. 14 on CTV, was produced by Toronto’s Real to Reel Productions with producer/ director Anne Pick. It chronicles the hunt for Dick since her release from Kingston’s Prison for Women in 1958. With a new identity and the comfort of sealed government files, Dick’s whereabouts since her release has been one of Canada’s great mysteries.

The doc draws on intense research and incorporates dozens of original interviews from across the country, featuring never-before-published material on the notorious Mrs. Dick.

CTV’s decision to have a doc accompany the MOW has also inspired a companion book, The Torso Murder, written by Brian Vallee and published by Key Porter Books. The book will also debut in September.

Torso, starring Kathleen Robertson (Scary Movie 2), Callum Keith Rennie (Due South), Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot) and Victor Garber (Titanic), is produced by Shaftesbury Films in association with CTV. Shaftesbury principal Christina Jennings is exec producing, with Hamilton native Alex Chapple directing. The screenplay, written by Dennis Foon, was inspired by the book Torso by Marjorie Freeman Campbell.

Seeking raucous coital partners

In an effort to ramp up for its late-night urban comedy After Hours With Kenny Robinson, The Comedy Network has put out a nation-wide casting call for ‘raucous coital partners willing to share the sounds of their lovemaking on national TV.’

After Hours will give 15 minutes of fame to Canadian couples willing to share one minute of audiotape featuring the sounds of their hot and freaky sex sessions. The best entries will be selected as the show’s ‘Sexy Couple of the Week.’

To launch this fall on Comedy, After Hours is described as a late-night party that gets down in an after-hour, club-like setting.

Each half-hour features audience interaction, live stand-up and sketches, the Kenny Robinson Phatt Azz Dancers and an on-set DJ.