Paul Gratton doesn’t think Decoys will sweep the next Genies. Or the Geminis. Or the festival circuit. The sci-fi comedy, which wrapped a six-week shoot in Ottawa early this month, is not meant to win critical praise or little gilt statuettes. No, it has bigger plans.

‘This was designed from day one to address the need for Canadian box-office hits and, most importantly, it’s designed to be the first of several CHUM-branded theatrical releases,’ says Gratton, VP/GM of CHUM’s Space: The Imagination Station. CHUM has made a large contribution to the $5-million Ontario/Quebec copro, will spend $500,000 for on-air promos this summer, and slapped its Space logo on the movie’s front end. The Movie Network is also providing funds.

Directed by Matt Hastings (The Outer Limits), starring Cory Sevier (Black Sash) and Nicole Eggert (Baywatch), Decoys tells of a small-town campus plagued by alien beings disguised as drop-dead gorgeous women. The only way to detect the ‘uberbabes’? They don’t have belly buttons.

THINKFilm will distribute in Canada and, if a release can be coordinated with a U.S. distrib, the 90-minute pic will ride a more than $1-million push into theatres in the second half of August. ‘Right after Freddy vs. Jason,’ notes Gratton.

THINKFilm head Jeff Sackman says Decoys is another ‘great opportunity’ to see what a commercial Canadian film can do when backed by a strong broadcaster, but adds it is too soon to say how wide a release the film will get.

This is CHUM’s first foray into branded feature films, and follows a July 2002 Telefilm Canada ruling that allows broadcaster-affiliated production companies to access the English-language selective component of the Canada Feature Film Fund. CHUM had long argued it deserved access to CFFF cash, a perk already enjoyed by broadcasters such as Alliance Atlantis and TVA International.

Decoys, however, is being produced by Ottawa’s Sound Venture Productions and Franco Battista’s Montreal-based Sci-Fi Productions – bankrolled by Battista’s CFFF performance envelope and additional Telefilm equity, along with cash from Space, The Movie Network and Reel One Entertainment of Montreal. Tom Berry is exec producer, Battista and Sound Venture CEO Neil Bregman produce.

CHUM’s next branded film will be made in-house through MuchMusic. Pending Telefilm approval, Rock n Roll Road Movie will shoot this summer, following a young lad’s cross-Canada trek to be with his sweetheart – who just happens to work at a certain Toronto-based all-music channel. Seville Entertainment will distribute.

CHUM plans to make more mass-appeal commercial films, in line with Telefilm’s goal of boosting the domestic box-office take to 5%, and is following the lead of specialty channels in the U.S. such as MTV and Nickelodeon.

‘We’ve seen a slew of these movies come out that do surprisingly well, despite being very niche-targeted,’ says Gratton, citing the out-of-the-blue success of Jackass: The Movie and Save the Last Dance, both produced and heavily promoted by MTV. CHUM is also taking its cues from Alliance Atlantis, which last year used its many specialty channels to promote Men with Brooms.

‘Telefilm listened very carefully that these sort of branded movies have a right to exist in Canada, especially if we’re going to attain 5% box office… The history of low-budget horror sci-fi teen comedies that have done well and risen above the pack in the absence of big names are legendary, all the way back to Night of the Living Dead,’ says Gratton.

-www.chumlimited.com