It’s been several years since we heard anything from Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice, the upstart filmmakers who made a splash at the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival with their feature doc Pitch. But the pair is back in the game this summer, hard at work on the reality-ish Kenny vs. Spenny for CBC.

The 26 x 30 youth series follows the over-competitive best buds as they try to outdo each other in assorted challenges and dares, much like MTV’s Jackass. Who can gain the most weight in a weekend? Who can stay awake the longest?

It’s a copro from Breakthrough Films and Television and L.A.-based Blueprint Entertainment – exec produced by Ira Levy, Peter Williamson, John Morayniss and Noreen Halpern. Kirsten Scollie is supervising producer and comedy impresario Mark Breslin, owner of the Yuk Yuk’s chain of comedy clubs, has signed on as a story consultant. One can only assume that, somewhere, at least one lawyer is also writing a very thorough disclaimer.

Kenny vs. Spenny will run $100,000 per ep, backed by CTF, CAVCO, tax credits and the CBC licence fee.

Blueprint, fronted by former Alliance Atlantis execs Halpern and Morayniss, will also unveil its satirical cartoon series Hey Joel on Bravo! next month. Animated by Calibre Digital Pictures in Toronto, the 13 x 30 show lampoons the music biz and stars John Cryer (Pretty in Pink) as the voice of an obnoxious reporter for VH-1.

It cost $5.2 million, backed by tax credits and licence fees from CHUM and VH-1. The series will also, naturally, air on the U.S. music channel but has not yet found a timeslot.

Breakthrough, meanwhile, is partway through new seasons of Swap TV and Manic Organic and is prepping to shoot new runs of Paradise Falls and Atomic Betty, although exact details have yet to be worked out. Production on season two of Paradise is slated for August, work on another 26 eps of Betty will likely get going in July.

Venture’s ventures

Up in Ottawa, Sound Venture Productions (Whole Notes, Foot Notes) has just wrapped six half-hours of Actors Notes, a doc/interview series hosted by Jennifer Dale about the work of celebrated Canuck stars such as Tom McCamus, Patrick McKenna and Daniel McIvor. It’s a copro with Dale’s company Isisseven, produced by Dale and director Katherine Jeans. Neil Bregman of Sound Venture is exec producer and will deliver the $425,000 show to Bravo! by year’s end. It airs January ’04 on the CHUM-owned arts specialty, and on its sister channels Star! and Canadian Learning Television.

Likewise, Freedom is a 6 x 30 dance series hosted by hoofer Robert Desrosiers and coproduced with Toronto’s ACME Pictures (Picture My Face). Pending CTF documentary funding, ACME’s Bob Barrett will shoot this summer in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal on a $300,000 budget and deliver, again to Bravo!, before January. The show is also in line for money from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Sound Venture is also servicing A Perfect Husband for Quebec-based Lance Entertainment. The $1.5-million MOW goes to camera mid-June for a four-week shoot, directed by Doug Jackson and exec produced by Tom Berry (Decoys) and Lance’s Pierre David (Someone is Watching). Bert Tougas (Slow Burn) is DOP.

‘It’s like Misery in reverse,’ says Ontario producer Bregman. The story follows a young woman who falls for, and then must escape, a crazed writer. Andrea Roth (Robocop) stars with Tracy Nelson (Dumb Luck) and Melrose Place refugee Thomas Calabro.

The shoot is backed by private money, and no broadcasters are attached. Berry and David plan to sell it on the international market and have split the distribution rights between their two companies. David’s Lance Films will sell to the world, Berry’s Premiere Bobine to Canada.

Sound Venture is also developing the 7 x 30 doc series Official Residences for CPAC, to shoot in 2004, and is re-cutting 39 eps of its Homes By Design lifestyle series into a 17 x 30 French-language doc series for ARTV, to be renamed Style et Maison. Editors Harry Ferderber and John Seck will sweat over that one and deliver in December.

Dude, where’s my bong?

Senator International is in Toronto through June shooting the stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle for New Line Cinema. Danny Leiner (Dude, Where’s My Car?) is at the wheel, working for producers Greg Shapiro, Nathan Kahane and Carsten Lorenz. Locals on the job include line producer Miles Dale (The Skulls), costume designer Alex Kavanagh (Ginger Snaps 2) and comic Shaun Majumder (The Ladies Man), who appears alongside stars John Cho (American Pie) and Kal Penn (Malibu’s Most Wanted).

Going Hollywood

Another player has been called up to the majors. Canadian Film Centre grad and festival darling Brad Peyton has been tapped to write and direct the CGI feature The Spider and the Fly for Tom Hanks’s company Playtone and Universal Studios.

‘This is unreal… I feel like I just landed in Oz,’ says Peyton, maker of the much-praised eight-minute short Evelyn: The Cutest Evil Dead Girl. Hanks and partner Gary Goetzman are expected to produce the film, adapted from a 19th century cautionary poem.