Vancouver: Year-over-year volume and value are up for B.C. production, so far. At press time, 13 features were prepping or in production, with five starts in March-April and the balance gearing up for May-June.

Among the new titles is Final Cut, a Lions Gate Films feature with Robin Williams in the lead and service-produced by Vancouver’s Ogden Gavanski.

The script, to be shot for less than $10 million, is a near-future story about a society that implants chips in people’s brains to record their lives through their eyes. Williams plays a ‘cutter’ – the guy who edits the chip at the appropriate time (like for a funeral) and becomes embroiled in the ethics of the chip’s use.

Production runs June through August at various Vancouver locations.

MGM feature Walking Tall, a remake of the original 1973 feature, stars wrestler The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) in the role of Buford Pusser, the Tennessee sheriff bent on ridding his small town of crime. Neal McDonough (Boomtown) costars and Kevin Bray (Platinum) is set to direct.

And Warner Bros.’ Catwoman, with Halle Berry in the lead, is looking like a go for September. Berry plays Patience Prince, who evolves into Catwoman during an investigation into the murder of her father. Owen Wilson is set to costar.

TV tuning

While the feature business is heating up, television is making a bit of a return to B.C.

USA Cable is in production with the MOW The Beltway, based on the investigation that led to the arrest of the snipers terrorizing Washington, DC. Production, which began April 9, wrapped May 8. Charles Dutton (Against the Ropes) plays the lead investigator, while Jay O. Sanders (Salem Witch Trials) costars. Tom McLoughlin (Without a Trace) directs.

Lions Gate Television is in production in Victoria with Lucky 7, an MOW for ABC Family about a woman whose late mother had predicted she would marry her seventh boyfriend. The problem is she’s in love with Boyfriend Six.

Kimberly Williams (According to Jim) stars and Harry Winer (Now and Again) is the director. Production wraps June 4.

And Viacom/TNT is doing the Peter Falk MOW Wilder Days. Production runs May 20 to June 19. In this story, the Columbo actor busts out of a nursing home with the help of his grandson and embarks on a road trip.

Space-time continuum

Battlestar Galactica – a remake of the original 1978 television show in which a ‘rag-tag fugitive fleet’ flees aliens and looks for Earth – is in production for USA Cable and the Sci-Fi Channel. Edward James Olmos (American Family), Canadian Alonso Oyarzun (Taken), Mary McDonnell (Donnie Darko), Jamie Bamber (Band of Brothers), James Callis (Bridget Jones’s Diary) and Katee Sackhoff (Halloween: Resurrection) star. Production, which began in March, runs until June 6.

Creep shows

Brightlight Pictures of Vancouver begins prep on Alone in the Dark, based on the Infogrames classic ‘survival-horror’ video game, May 12. It’s another in the company’s string of productions done and planned with German director Uwe Boll (Boll Kin). Few details on production and cast were available at press time.

The Nest (aka House of Dead II), another Boll collaboration, is a sequel to the video-game-inspired zombie movie that shot last year and is going into distribution. Brightlight partner Shawn Williamson says prep and production on that should follow Alone in the Dark.

Leo rising

Two 2003 Leo Award winners won’t have to bear the suspense with other nominees at the May 9 and 10 galas in Vancouver.

Shelley Gillen, head of creative affairs for Movie Central and the licence-granter for B.C. features like Flower and Garnet, The Burial Society, Saint Monica, Mile Zero, The Delicate Art of Parking, Lola, Emile, The Rhino Brothers, Suddenly Naked and Protection won this year’s Individual Outstanding Achievement Award. Previous winners include Crawford Hawkins, Dianne Neufeld, Michael Francis and Darryl Duke.

And the British Columbia Council of Film Unions, instrumental in securing labor peace in B.C. through its affiliates, Teamsters Local 155, IATSE Local 891 and IATSE Local 669, will receive the Outstanding Achievement Award for a Group, Company, or Association. Previous group winners include Women in Film & Video Vancouver, CBC Television – British Columbia, Pacific Centre of the National Film Board and British Columbia Film.

Home run

Studio B Productions has increased its batting percentages in the U.S.: all 26 episodes of D’Myna Leagues, a series about baseball-playing myna birds, will begin airing in September on the 100-plus stations in the WB Network.

‘We’re very excited to break into the U.S. with the first-ever baseball cartoon series,’ says Blair Peters, creator and executive producer. ‘I think kids will really dig the unique combination of traditional 2D characters and 3D backgrounds that capture the exciting on-field action. And adults will get a kick out of the nostalgic tributes to the likes of Shoeless Joe Jackson, Harry Carey and Babe Ruth.’

According to Studio B, the Kids’ WB! stream dominates Saturday morning cartoon programming, and the WB 100-plus station group accounts for approximately nine million households in 109 markets.

D’Myna Leagues aired in Canada on CTV and YTV and has sold through Columbia TriStar into territories such as Venezuela to Singapore.