Epitome has ‘Star’ power

If you can sing and act, and can pass for a 15-year-old girl, you might just have a shot at starring in Instant Star, the new 13 x 30 teen drama from Epitome Pictures. The Toronto prodco – keeper of the Degrassi flame – saw its latest bright idea greenlit by CTV for 2004/05 (see story, page 2) and is now hustling into preproduction, looking to cast the lead and eight supporting roles in April, and to shoot from June through December, according to associate producer Nicole Hamilton.

The show follows an average teen girl who is thrust into the difficulties of stardom after winning a Canadian Idol-ish reality show. Epitome head Linda Schuyler cooked up the idea last summer and handed it off to showrunner James Hurst, who penned the pilot and bible. Stephen Stohn (Degrassi: The Next Generation, Riverdale) exec produces with Schuyler and they are shopping for directors (‘Paging Bruce McDonald. Phone call for Bruce McDonald’) and a story editor.

CTV hopes the series will tap the same youth vein that has made Next Generation, now heading for a fourth season, such a hit.

Instant Star will put in for cash from CTF, the Shaw Television Broadcast Fund and the Independent Production Fund. If all goes well, it will air on CTV and Noggin in the U.S. sometime in ’04/05.