Alliance Films has signed a three-year all-rights distribution deal with CBS Films, the feature production arm of the giant U.S. network. CBS Films was established in 2007 with a mandate to produce four to six pictures a year in the modest — by studio standards — range of $50 million.

The first picture in the pipeline will be Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendan Fraser, Harrison Ford and Keri Russell, set for release on Jan. 22, followed by the Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Back-Up Plan, a romantic comedy directed by Alan Poul which is set for April. For the summer comes a teen romance spin on Beauty and the Beast entitled Beastly, starring Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer and directed by Daniel Barnz.

Faster, an action thriller starring Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton set for production in January, is expected to be ready for delivery in the autumn of next year. That production is a coventure with Sony Pictures. Further down the road but still likely to be part of Alliance’s output deal, CBS Films is developing a remake of My Fair Lady.

In 2008, Alliance had Canadian box-office receipts of $131.6 million, or about 14% of the national theatrical market share.