Few teenagers, least of all the gay ones, would like to see their dating lives turned into a TV show for the country’s biggest network. But Marc Hall – the highschooler who last year took his school board to court so that he could take his beau to the prom – must surely be used to all the attention by now. His social life, and the legal fracas it touched off, made headlines around the world last spring, and now, via Tapestry Pictures, will be made into the MOW Prom Queen for CTV.

Director John L’Ecuyer – who also shot the teen-centric Tagged: The Jonathan Wamback Story for Tapestry and CTV – started work on the pic last month in Toronto and Hamilton, ON. Aaron Ashmore (Treed Murray) stars as Hall, alongside Quebec crowd-pleasers Marie Tifo (Napoleon) and Jean Pierre Bergeron (Last Chapter) as his parents. Perennial nice guy Dave Foley (News Radio, Kids in the Hall) plays against type as the intolerant principal, opposite his former troupemate Scott Thompson (Providence), who steps in as Hall’s lawyer. Fiona Reid (Duct Tape Forever), Tamara Hope (Shattered City) and newcomer Mack Fyfe also star.

Producers are shooting in Hamilton to take advantage of CTF’s 5% regional bonus, given that Hall’s actual hometown, Oshawa, is too close to Toronto. To keep the lawyers happy, the setting has also been changed to a fictional town.

‘With true stories it’s always more comfortable for everyone if the movie’s not shot in the actual town,’ says exec producer Mary Young Leckie. The $3.8-million project drew funds from CTF’s LFP and EIP, Shaw, the Cogeco indie fund, CTV, Seville Pictures and Tapestry. Seville has world distribution rights.

The pop music soundtrack will include the new single by Halifax singer Melanie Doane, You Are What You Love, and footage from the pic will be worked into the music video.

Shooting runs to the end of October. An airdate has not been set, although sometime in the coming prom season is probably a safe bet.

Crime spree

Producers Robert Lang and Robert Sandler are drawing on their knowledge of police sciences for the debut run of 72 Hours: True Crime – a 20 x 30 doc series for CBC and TLC. The pair, who previously teamed on the series Exhibit A: The Secrets of Forensic Science, go to air with the new show Nov. 4 on CBC, following some last-minute post and shooting.

A copro of Lang’s Kensington Communications (The Sacred Balance) and Sandler’s Creative Anarchy shop, the series retells true crime stories from across the country, detailing how detectives assembled clues and evidence during the first three days of each case.

Shot on HD, it cost $3.8 million, paid for with licence fees and tax credits. The series has also sold to Canal D in France, where it will air this time next year.

Richard Meech (Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World) is series producer, Sophie Arthaud and Barbara Boyden are creative producers. The series is being cut by Chris Cassino, Petra Valier and Dan Sadler of Kensington.

Lang says unlike Exhibit A, 72 Hours focuses less on CSI-ish forensics, and more on traditional detective work. ‘The cases have to be strong, dramatic, interesting stories,’ he says. ‘And we were very aware we needed varied crimes. So it’s not all murder and sexual assault.’ The series also looks at robberies, arson and hijacking cases.

Canada’s Wonderland

The world of TV lawyers will get even more crowded in January when This is Wonderland debuts on CBC. The Toronto-set legal series from producer Bernie Zukerman (Chasing Cain, Savage Messiah) got underway at Old City Hall last month, putting directors Bruce McDonald, Scott Smith, Anne Wheeler and Keith Behrman to work on 13 one-hour eps penned by noted playwright George F. Walker and Dani Romain. Production runs until February.

The show has Cara Pifko (The In-Laws) as Alice, a rookie lawyer thrown, unprepared, into the chaotic world of criminal law. Michael Riley (100 Days in the Jungle), Tom Rooney (Angels in America) and Michael Murphy (Magnolia) also star, along with some 2,000 extras and 400 other bit actors. The project is backed by CTF’s LFP and EIP, federal and provincial tax credits.

Zukerman is quick to praise the writing of the series, which is laced with references to Dante, Dickens and Lewis Carroll. ‘Each script walks a very fine line between high comedy and tragedy,’ he says. ‘There is much more drama to be discovered in the lives of real people who populate the lower courts.’

Score!

Highlights from the National Film Board doc Shinny: The Hockey in All of Us are getting play at every home game of the Toronto Maple Leafs this season, thanks to team boss Ken Dryden.

Dryden saw the film, a sentimental look at neighborhood hockey games, at a screening earlier this year and asked producer Gerry Flahive and director David Battistella for a one-minute highlight reel, which is now being used as video background for the national anthem. It is the first time in several years that the Buds have run video during the anthem, and the clip is branded, front and back, with the NFB logo.