Ivan Reitman has spent over 30 years putting Canadians on the big screen, from early David Cronenberg and Eugene Levy to big-name stars Dan Aykroyd and Tom Green. Now, you can add national icons Julian, Ricky and Bubbles to that list.

Reitman, in Toronto Sept. 14 to speak at a Canadian Club luncheon, confirmed months of rumors that he will produce the Trailer Park Boys movie.

‘I’ve spent my life looking for unique comedic voices and I think [the Trailer Park Boys] are. I’ve been a fan for a while,’ says the 58-year-old Toronto-raised filmmaker. ‘We met about a year ago and we’ve been slowly doing this. There’s nothing immediate.’

Reitman will produce, while show creator Mike Clattenburg is on the slate to direct. Clattenburg and his writing partners, TPB’s stars Robb Wells, Mike Smith and John Paul Tremblay, are currently working on the script.

‘We’re not sure how we’re going to finance it yet. We have to see [the script]. It has to get written. I don’t think I’ll have my own money,’ says Reitman, adding that Telefilm Canada has been involved in early discussions of the project.

No budget has been set, although Reitman feels it should be ‘appropriate to the spirit of the show.’

So, $100,000?

‘A little bit more. Maybe $200,000.’

While TPB is fast becoming a Canadian institution, Reitman, whose producing credits include Ghost Busters, Road Trip and Old School, has no intention of backing a movie that does not also play well in the U.S. ‘I’ve always felt that one should think big and think worldwide. I always have from the beginning of my career.

‘If you create things that are good and interesting and funny, it’s amazing how they find an audience beyond our borders,’ he says, citing 1979 summer-camp feature Meatballs, which he directed, as a very Canadian story that played well around the world. ‘For me [Meatballs] is a very specifically Canadian idea, no less so than, for example, dealing with a low-end trailer park in Nova Scotia.’

Such sentiments were echoed in Reitman’s lunchtime Canadian Club address in which he exhorted Canadian filmmakers and artists to jettison a national ‘inferiority complex’ and approach selling their works to the world with confidence. By way of example, Reitman rattled off a list of successful Canadian comics and music stars and pointed out that Canada’s small population base has had at least as much influence on American culture as it has had on Canada’s.

‘It’s time to stop being so damn negative,’ he said.

He also lamented artists’ reliance on government support, saying that if they ‘are too busy figuring out government criteria, how can they respond to the true arbiter of taste, the general public?’

In an interview afterward, the filmmaker also threw in his two cents on how Telefilm can achieve its goal of spurring Canadian films to earn 5% of the Canadian box office.

Reitman, who got his start producing the early films of David Cronenberg before launching his career as producer and director stateside, says script development is the most critical component in making a successful feature, but one that is invariably overlooked in Canada. It is an issue he has discussed at length with Telefilm executives, including former executive director Richard Stursberg.

‘The real key is get good stories from good writers and develop them. Pull back some of the great writers that are no longer in this country. Get the words on a page first and then everything will follow,’ he says.

‘I’ve been pushing very hard for Telefilm to make a greater investment in script development. Every studio in America does that. That’s the most basic [approach]. I see no reason why Telefilm should operate any differently.’