Vancouver: Not only does Vancouver get to host the action picture Ecks vs. Sever because of international security concerns, but now we get to play ourselves.

The mid-range-budget picture – starring Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas as rogue agents out to get each other – was originally set in Bangkok. But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the production was moved back to North America to be closer to Los Angeles.

Directed by Kaos, a Thai making his Hollywood debut, the film is being shot with wide angles and old-fashioned physical effects – meaning that the location is integral to the story and computer graphics will not be used to enhance, for instance, the explosions.

(Interestingly, producer Chris Lee’s last project Final Fantasy was done entirely in CG.)

Adding authenticity to the sets, meanwhile, is Vancouver-based production designer Douglas Higgins (They, Devil Wore a Skirt). The entire shoot is on location; no studios are keeping crews from Vancouver’s winter rain.

The film also stars Talisa Soto (who worked with Banderas on Mambo Kings), Gregg Henry (Body Double), Miguel Sandoval (Blow) and Vancouver actor Terry Chen (Almost Famous).

Ecks vs. Severs is a Franchise Pictures production with Warner Bros. distributing. Production runs until the end of March.

Not since Sharon Stone’s feature Intersection, made in 1994, has Vancouver had a starring role in a major Hollywood production.

Take two

Local production crews, a bit scorched by last year’s strike-talk fireworks, will be grateful that L.A. studios are going back to the tried-and-true this year.

Sequels, so far, dominate the spring and summer production roster and on the whole they are bigger-budget affairs.

Twentieth Century Fox’s X-Men geographically mutates from Toronto to Vancouver for the sequel in which the superheroes do battle again with the evil Magneto. Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry and others from the first movie return.

Mrs. Clause: The Santa Clause II, a sequel to star Tim Allen’s 1994 Disney comedy, begins production Feb. 6 and runs until May 9. Judge Reinhold and Canadian Wendy Crewson return.

New Line’s Final Destination II, the sequel to teen terror feature Final Destination, starts production in Vancouver Feb. 18 and runs until May 2. The original by producer team James Wong and Glen Morgan was made in 2000 and starred Vancouver actor Devon Sawa as the kid with the premonition that keeps his friends off a doomed airplane. The only returning cast member from the original is Ali Larter (Varsity Blues).

And finally Willard, also made by New Line, which is not a sequel but a ‘reimagining.’ Final Destination’s Wong and Morgan will be doing double-duty with the new version of the film about a misfit, his pet rats and the revenge he exacts on his cruel coworkers. Morgan will direct. Production runs Feb. 11 to April 26.

B is for busy

Studio B, one of the busiest animation shops in Canada, continues to churn out the work.

On the service side, the company is wrapping production on Woody Woodpecker for Universal and a Japanese animation cartoon called Chibi for Pioneer Entertainment USA and has started preproduction on Braceface, a project for Toronto’s Nelvana.

Studio B has also started production on 26 11-minute episodes of Something Else, an international coproduction with TV Loonland and Family Channel for kids aged five to eight. The series is based on the children’s book about unlikely friends.

YTV, meanwhile, has ordered 52 11-minute episodes of Being Ian, which was created by Ian Corlett (cocreator of Yvon of the Yukon) and will be designed by veteran animator Marv Newland.

The second season of Studio B’s homemade series D’Myna Leagues and the third season of What About Mimi? are both in post-production. Mimi is now an 11-minute format.

In other animation news, animator Gord Stanfield (Kleo the Misfit Unicorn) is in development with Teletoon on a new series called Helium Boy, which is about a teenager who can float. And Vancouver’s Atomic Cartoons is doing service work on Cosmic Cowboys for French animation company Alphanim and Seven Little Monsters for Nelvana.

Growing up

After years of making low-budget TV magazine segments for community television, Vibrance Alive Entertainment of Vancouver is taking the next step – a documentary series – says producer Daniel Leipnik.

My Mother, My Hero is an 11-part, half-hour series about how the Holocaust has affected mother/daughter relationships. One shoot is complete in Australia and other episodes will be shot in B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Washington State and the U.K. until July.

Shaw, Delta Cable and SBS in Australia have bought into the $1.2-million project. WTN and History are also negotiating broadcast rights, says Leipnik.

Children have been raised differently after the Holocaust, suggests Leipnik, who says he got the idea for the series from his Australian grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, who has contributed to Steven Speilberg’s Shoah Foundation oral history. Among the still-prevalent attitudes, he explains, is a general fear of strangers and non-Jews and a drive to succeed beyond your needs. And, no matter where they are in the world, the Jewish mother/daughter relationships are similar, he says.

Local first AD Seanna McPherson (I Was a Teenage Faust, Ed) gets a promotion to director on the series, which will feature a number of directors.

Vibrance Alive’s main business has been producing segments for Shaw’s local gay television series Outlook, which shrank from a half-hour show to occasional five- to 11-minute segments last year.