WINNIPEG — Two Prairie provinces are on Hollywood’s radar to host a big-budget western starring Tom Hanks and Julianne Moore this fall.

Boone’s Lick, an $80-million to $100-million movie based on the Larry McMurtry novel, scouted Calgary in early spring, according to the city’s interim film commissioner Sue Bristow. The production is also looking at rural Manitoba, according to sources in the Winnipeg film industry, as a potential location to shoot extensive riverbank scenes.

The story, penned by McMurtry and his Brokeback Mountain writing partner Diana Ossana, follows a headstrong woman (Moore) who takes her father and four kids on a frontier trek from Missouri to Wyoming to find her estranged husband. Hanks play’s Moore’s brother-in-law, who goes along on the trip and falls in love with her along the way.

Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam) has signed on to direct the Universal Studios picture, produced by Gary Goetzman (Big Love, The Polar Express) and Hanks. Calgary would stand in for Wyoming — as it did in the Academy Award-winning Brokeback Mountain, which shot in wild rose country in 2004.

‘They are looking for standard western locations — mountains, prairie scenery, a small-town western look,’ says Bristow. But she points out that two other cities are also in the running to land Boone’s Lick. ‘They told us we are in direct competition with Wyoming and New Mexico for the shoot,’ she says.

Wyoming recently launched an aggressive film incentive program to boost production activity in the state. The film also requires long stretches of undeveloped riverbank to stand in for the Missouri River, and may turn to rural Manitoba to shoot these scenes.

While Manitoba Film & Sound would not comment on the potential shoot, sources in the local film industry say that the production has requested Manitoba location photos and screened the yet-to-be-released Brad Pitt western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which shot scenes in Winnipeg’s heritage district two years ago. A Manitoba scout has not yet taken place.