CanLit is white hot. Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave in Tora Bora or cryogenically frozen for the last decade, that should come as no surprise.

Canadians including Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Carol Shields and Barbara Gowdy are on bestseller lists the world over and several have scooped up international literary prizes including the Booker and Pulitzer. Perhaps even more significant, Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her December 2001 Book Club.

But as Canadian novelists get their due in international literary circles, the competition for their works as source material for feature films has intensified proportionately.

In terms of optioning rights, the market for made-in-Canada works has never been better.

‘We’ve been seeing a lot more action,’ says Suzanne DePoe, president and COO of WCA Film and Television, which was established in 2000 by Westwood Creative Artists to leverage the surging popularity of adaptations of Canadian works.

Here at home interest is growing as well. CTV, for example, devoted $250,000 in fiscal 2001 toward devlopment of adaptations of Canadian works, says Bill Mustos, VP dramatic programming.

But this popularity has been creating its own special kind of headache for Canadian producers.

While the purchase price is usually 2% of the film’s budget, simple option costs – the price of holding rights for 12 to 24 months – run from $1,000 to $10,000, and sometimes as high as $50,000. As a result, producers have had to make some tough choices when looking at literary properties.

It’s not uncommon for Canadian producers to find themselves competing with Hollywood or British producers for an option and on occasion unable to come up with the necessary money.

The turning point for CanLit’s popularity as source material, says Robin Cass, partner in Toronto-based Triptych Media, came with the success of the film version of Ondaatje’s The English Patient, a critical and box-office success that won nine Academy Awards.

Ever since, it’s been open season on Canadian literature.

‘More [rights] are being bought outside the country,’ Cass says. ‘The kinds of prices that get thrown around are completely out of whack with what most people here can relate to.’

Triptych currently has close to a dozen projects in production and development, of which the majority is literary-based material. This includes Republic of Love by Shields, Falling Angels by Gowdy and The Bay of Love and Sorrows by David Adams Richards.

On more than one occasion, Cass has been forced to dig into his own bank account to gain option rights to books he wants to turn into movies. In one instance, at least, he lost the option for a high-profile book because the necessary funds were not available.

This month The Harold Greenberg Fund announced it was addressing this dilemma with a $300,000 envelope devoted directly to the optioning of Canadian literary properties, new money derived from the The Movie Network’s recent licence renewal.

‘Now that CanLit is so sexy and popular, the price for optioning has gone up. This [new envelope] will give the producer a leg-up to get in there very quickly and option the book with our support,’ says Wendy MacKeigan, the chair of English-language programs for the HGF.

While Telefilm Canada recognizes optioning costs once a project is underway, HGF makes capital available at the front end.

MacKeigan says that while Canada’s place in international literary circles has never been more secure, there has been a corresponding ratcheting up of able screenwriters who can adapt these works.

Meanwhile, Canada’s film producers have also become more savvy in terms of broadening their development slates, she says. No mature industry has companies devoting entire research and development budgets to only one property, she points out. Too often that is exactly what small Canadian producers have had to deal with.

Rather, producers should have as many as 12 projects in development at any one time. The optioning of novels, true-crime stories, operas and plays provides a wealth of potential material.

‘[This] is how development should work in a healthy environment where you’re stimulating both the independent producer and production companies,’ she says. ‘Then the best ones are chosen instead of the ones that they’ve put their lifeblood into that sometimes just aren’t timely.’

Cass couldn’t agree more. ‘From a producing perspective, I don’t think it’s smart of me to wait for the next great screenplay to cross my doorstep. It’s smarter for me, and incumbent upon me, to take a more active role and set up a project.’

This is precisely the approach of producer Robert Lantos at Serendipity Point Films in Toronto. As it stands, Lantos has 11 productions in development. Only two are from original screenplays; the rest are based on literary properties, including Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion, Mordecai Richler’s Barney’s Version and Anne Michaels’ Fugitive Pieces.

‘A book, and particularly one that has literary merit and is high profile, gives a producer a strong building block, something that is meaningful to start with and with which he can attract talent,’ he says. But while a novel’s popularity will help with domestic sales, it is still the talent that plays more in securing international distribution, Lantos says.