With the $25 million film based on beat writer Jack Kerouac’s classic novel On the Road set to begin shooting in Montreal Aug. 2 and Oscar winner Ben Kingsley on his way this fall to film A Great Education, Quebec’s Film and Television Council is celebrating a banner year for foreign service shoots.

”We have never had a better atmosphere” says the province’s film commissioner Hans Fraikin. ”We got our act together and it is paying off.”

The Television Council estimates that production spending in Quebec so far this year is $250 million, more than double what it was for the entire year in 2009. Last year foreign producers spent $130 million in Montreal; in 2008 a paltry $85 million.

In October Ben Kingsley will be in town to shoot the $6.5 drama A Great Education about a scholarship student at Harvard who falls for a society girl. The film is produced by Myriad Pictures and Montreal’s Equinoxe Films.

On the Road will feature Twilight starlet Kristen Stewart, who will play Marylou, the wife of anti-hero Dean Moriarty. Moriarty will be portrayed by Garrett Hedlund and British actor Sam Riley (24 Hour Party People, Control) will play Sal Paradise. Spider-Man star Kirsten Dunst, currently here shooting opposite Jim Sturgess in Upside Down, is also part of On the Road‘s cast. The executive producer of the France (majority) Canada co-production is Paris-based MK2. Montreal producer Lyse Lafontaine (Lyla Films) is also producing.

On the Road‘s director is Brazilian Walter Salles, whose previous films include The Motorcycle Diaries and Central Station.

This year’s shooting lineup also includes the recently wrapped Source Code, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal, and Immortals, which features Henry Cavill, John Hurt, Freida Pinto, Kellan Lutz, Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff and Luke Evans. Upside Down, with Dunst and Sturgess, is also still filming here. The TV series Blue Mountain State will also begin filming soon.

There have also been reports that producers from Paramount Pictures were in town last week scouting locations for a remake of the sci-fi cult classic Dune. There is also talk that Montreal might host the production of The Moth Diaries.