First Jackie Chan, now Chow Yun-Fat. Yun-Fat, who confirmed his status as one of the world’s most popular action stars with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is coming to Toronto to film MGM’s Bulletproof Monk, an action flick based on a comic-book miniseries.

The F/X and martial-arts-laden movie tells the story of a nameless, ageless monk (Yun-Fat), who has protected an uber-powerful ancient scroll for decades. His search for a successor leads to a streetwise kid named Kar, played by Seann William Scott (American Pie). James King (Pearl Harbor) is on board as a Russian princess sidekick named Bad Girl.

The film is directed by first-timer Paul Hunter, who has helmed videos for the likes of Mariah Carey. Writers are Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris (cowriters of Demon Knight), who adapted the screenplay from the comic by Gotham Chopra, son of spiritual guru Deepak. Lion Rock is the production company, with Charles Roven, Terence Chang and John Woo as producers.

The film, set in San Francisco, is scheduled to shoot for an indefinite time at Toronto Film Studios beginning March 2. It is slated for a North American release in fourth quarter 2002 through MGM.

A new season of Witchblade

Still on U.S. comic-book adaptations coming north, the second season of Witchblade: The Original Series began shooting in Toronto Jan. 22 and runs to June 18.

The Witchblade is a living gauntlet of incredible power that has welded itself to extraordinary warrior women for centuries, including none other than Joan of Arc. In the modern age, that crazy glove with mystical powers and a mind of its own is stuck on NYPD Detective Sara Pezzini. Now that the two have become one, they go out busting criminals’ heads while Pezzini investigates the origin of the mysterious mitt.

Yancy Butler (Hard Target) plays Pezzini. Like any actress, Butler would have a hard time living up to the outfits that cover little of the Top Cow Productions comic character’s curvaceous frame. David Chokachi plays Jake McCartey, Sara’s surfer boy partner.

Witchblade first made the transition to TV with a cable film that debuted on TNT in August 2000. Season one consisted of 11 one-hours, produced by Top Cow and Halsted Pictures, in association with Warner Bros. Television. Ralph Hemecker (The X-Files) serves as executive producer with Dan Halsted (Any Given Sunday) and Marc Silvestri. Vikki Williams produces.

While some exteriors are shot in and around T.O., the series gets that NYC feel by integrating second unit material lensed in the Big Apple along with stock footage.

Local DOP David Moxness (Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict) shoots the majority of the program in the 24p high-definition format. Post-production and F/X work is done at Manta DSP.

Season two, consisting of 13 episodes, is slated to premiere this summer on TNT.

Warner Bros. reports it is currently working on a Canadian sale.

Nelvana, MTV partner on series

Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana made a splash on day one of NATPE with the announcement that it will coproduce two new series with Viacom’s MTV: Clone High and Varsity Blues.

Clone High is an animated comedy about a group of students created with the DNA from some of history’s most famous people. With several writer alums from The Simpsons, the show will provide a balance between smart cultural satire and slapstick comedy, says William Jenkins, Nelvana’s L.A.-based VP of development.

Clone High was created by exec producers Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, and is also exec produced by Bill Lawrence, creator of Scrubs and cocreator of Spin City. Production is underway at Nelvana’s Toronto facility.

Shooting in Vancouver, Varsity Blues is based on the popular 1999 high-school football flick of the same name which MTV coproduced. Peter Iliff (Patriot Games, Point Break), the feature’s writer, is the creator of the series and one of its producers along with Tova Leiter, one of the original film’s producers. Jenkins says the series aims to recapture the film’s more comedic elements.

The initial production cycles for both shows will be 13 episodes, with projected airdates this summer on MTV. No word yet on Canadian broadcasters.

Clone High’s edginess – illustrated by guest spots from gross-out artistes Marilyn Manson and Tom Green – and Varsity Blues’ live-action dramedy format a la Wonder Years herald a new direction for Nelvana, known primarily for the production and distribution of animated children’s shows.

‘[We’re] expanding our programming and going after a demographic we have not been focused this much on in the past,’ Lawrence says from Las Vegas. ‘We’re going to be doing more live action in the future. If the right property is there, we’re going to get involved.’

In March MTV will air The Sausage Factory, the live-action adolescent comedy produced by Nelvana and Peace Arch Entertainment Group, which launched domestically on The Comedy Network in November.

Best-kept Secret

So you thought Hollywood invented that head-spinning routine in The Exorcist? They were actually borrowing a behavioral trait from the preying mantis. This is one of the fascinating bits of minutia The Secret World of Gardens, airing on Alliance Atlantis’ HGTV, seeks to bring to light. Instead of wandering the globe in search of exotic fauna, the nature program shows the mysterious animals and insects that live among us.

‘You could walk out into your backyard, whether you live in Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal, and see an array of life far stranger than anything on The X-Files,’ says Susan Fleming, TSWOG producer and codirector (with David New).

Hosted by bug lover Martin Galloway, the show is a true labor of love for Fleming, who has dedicated the last five years to it. Why so much time?

‘It’s really intensive macro-photography, and you’re waiting in the garden for things to happen, because you can’t make bugs do anything, no matter how much you bribe them,’ she explains. ‘And the slightest breeze looks like a hurricane in macro-photography. You really have to spend the time to get it right.’

Fleming worked as a line producer at Rhombus Media a dozen years ago, and was subsequently a founding partner of Toronto-based Stone Soup Productions and a producer/director for Harrowsmith Country Life and Foodstuff for Discovery Channel.

TSWOG’s second season is in the final phase of post-production at Toronto’s Optix Digital Post & FX and tentatively scheduled to debut March 25. The first season reaped Gemini noms for best science, technology, nature, environment or adventure doc program, best photography and best original music.

Funding is divided among broadcasters HGTV Canada and HGTV USA, the Rogers Cable Network Fund and the Canadian Television Fund. Produced by Secret World of Gardens Productions, the show is also broadcast in Australia and Japan.

Shooting takes place at an indoor studio in Uxbridge, ON and at several nearby gardens. Fleming says she works on a tight budget, the majority of which goes toward numerous rolls of Super 16 film, which allows for time-lapse and 500 frames per second photography, as well as future-proofing for the 16:9 format.

Season two encompasses 13 half-hours, the first two of which focus on garden birds and frogs.