Magic Rock, Muse get to the Plain Truth

Halifax: Halifax-based Magic Rock Productions has teamed up with Montreal’s Muse Entertainment to coproduce Plain Truth, a $5.6-million MOW for U.S.-based Lifetime Movie Network, due to shoot in and around Halifax July 15 to Aug. 9. The project went into prep in late June.

Michael Mahoney of Magic Rock produces with Muse executive producer Michael Prupas. Paul Shapiro (The Lotus Eaters) directs the story adapted by Matt Tabak from Jodi Picoult’s book of the same name.

This is the first time Muse has coproduced with a Nova Scotia production company. It has completed interprovincial coproductions with partners in Manitoba, Alberta, B.C. and Ontario. Prupas says the cost of producing in Nova Scotia and the tax credits offered by the province are what attracted the company to Halifax.

Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) stars alongside Canadian Alison Pill (Fast Food High, Perfect Pie) in the story about a lawyer (Hargitay) who goes into an Amish community to defend a young woman (Pill) who is accused of murdering her infant child.

While the show is licensed to Lifetime in the U.S. and will be distributed internationally by Robert Greenwald Films, it has yet to secure a Canadian broadcaster, something Prupas says he is confident will happen in the future, explaining that as it becomes increasingly difficult to complete Canadian-financed productions, business is becoming increasingly driven by American money. Laura Bracken

Double up

Vancouver: Snowman’s Pass, the first of Insight Film & Video’s six low-budget video features with Regent Entertainment in the U.S. and CHUM and Superchannel in Canada, wrapped two weeks of production June 30. The rock-climbing thriller stars Marc Singer (BeastMaster) and Nicole Eggert (Decoys) and shot in Squamish north of Vancouver to take advantage of the regional tax-credit bonuses. Delivery is in October.

Too Cool for Christmas, delayed from the spring, will go into production as the second MOW for Regent and CHUM in July or August. At press time, no cast had been signed to the MOW about a teenage girl who rediscovers Christmas.

A third video production, Tides of War, takes place on a submarine.

Zolar, the family MOW about an alien who joins an extreme sports team, debuted in May to decent audiences on WB Kids, says Kirk Shaw, Insight CEO & executive producer. Produced as a backdoor pilot, Insight has to wait until November to see if it’s picked up as a 30-minute series. YTV and Superchannel have yet to air the pilot.

Meanwhile, at the recent Banff Television Festival, Insight signed a deal with Global Television to produce a 4 x 60 primetime documentary series called Vanity and Sanity, about plastic surgery gone wrong. The $1.2-million project goes into production in August, says Shaw.

The value of Insight’s production slate for fiscal 2005 (starting Sept. 1) will double to $40 million, says Shaw. Ian Edwards

Marked for greatness

Vancouver: Marker, the latest Vancouver Island feature to be commissioned by CHUM’s The New VI, went into production June 28 for three weeks.

Written by Anthony Grieco, Marker is a coming-of-age story with a horror twist. A teenaged girl’s life is turned upside down when she discovers she has a bizarre virus that has plagued the women of the town for decades.

Iris Graham (Alienated), Jonathan Cherry (House of the Dead), Sonja Bennett (Punch) and Eric Johnson (Smallville) star in the project produced by new Vancouver-based company Creative Engine Pictures, run by Erin Haskett and Larisa Andrews. John Paizs (Crime Wave), the originator of the ‘Winnipeg Film Group Style,’ directs.

Marker is one of six films executive produced by Vancouver’s Brightlight Pictures for CHUM. Ian Edwards