Montreal: Jean Bureau, former production financing and international distribution executive with TVA International, has formed JB Media, a new production company which will open with a slate of five MOW thrillers.

The package is budgeted in the $17-million range, with more than half the financing sourced from foreign partners in the U.S., Italy and Germany. Astral Television Networks is making an unspecified equity investment in each of the MOWs and will also license the films, says Bureau.

The first to shoot is The Rendering, a $3.5-million thriller directed by Peter Svatek and starring Shannen Doherty (Charmed), Peter Outerbridge (Mission to Mars) in the role of a deranged character who menaces a beautiful female artist, and veteran actor Stephen Young. The screenplay is from U.S. writer David Amann. Bureau and Josee Mauffette are producing. Allan Joli Coeur is providing legal services. The 18-day, 35mm location shoot wrapped Sept. 7.

The productions will qualify as Canadian content and use the service tax credit for financing purposes.

Among JB Media’s international partners on the five-film slate are Hearst Entertainment of the U.S., which has distribution in the U.S. and parts of Asia and Europe. The balance of international is split between German film fund Victory Media Group and its Italian-based coproduction partners DeAngelis Group. TVA International has provided an advance against non-pay-TV and video in Canada.

‘[The partners] are in for the package, but each film has its own greenlight,’ says Bureau. ‘They all agree on the script and then I run a casting list and offers are made. And we’ll try to go for actors who meet the needs of most of [the partners].’

JB Media’s other MOW projects include Guilty by Association, Night Waves and Wicked Minds, the first two scheduled to shoot in October and November. Directors have not been named. The producer says he planned to start preproduction as early as last March, but everything was pushed back with the threatened SAG strike. ‘The German partner’s investment is driven by tax laws and they need to spend their money in the [current] fiscal year.’

Bureau, who started in the business 12 years ago with Quebec agency SOGIC (now SODEC), has also repped Fox and Columbia TV sales in Quebec, before moving to Astral Distribution. He says he’s looking at new scripts and service opportunities from U.S. cable nets TNT and HBO, as well as prospects for international feature films as early as next summer.

‘We’ll consider all the financing advantages we can find in Canada, but the choice of project has to be driven by the marketplace,’ he says.

Bureau’s move to independent production is partly the result of new TVA owner Quebecor’s move to abandon production financing and international sales on drama projects. Other producers with TVA, including Jacques Methe, Michel Lavoie and Andre Belanger, have left the company, which remains active in youth and animation and Canadian distribution.

Bureau holds there are all kinds of openings for European programming in the increasingly fragmented U.S. cable TV market, in factual, variety specials and kids, although much less so for drama.

Bureau established a track record in raising financing for international MOWs produced at TVA (the former Motion International).