• Licensing firm m4e has acquired the German-language rights – covering new media, music, merchandising and publishing – for the Storm Hawks cartoon by Vancouver-based Nerd Corps. The 52 x 30 action-adventure is due this fall on the Cartoon Network and France 3.
• Thunderbird Films has picked up the worldwide rights to Tragedy at Mayerthorpe, the MOW currently in the works about the small-town Alberta shoot-out that left four RCMP officers dead in 2005. The project is underway in the Calgary area, produced by Seven24 Films and Slanted Wheel Entertainment for CTV. It stars Henry Czerny (Clear and Present Danger) and Diane Ladd (Chinatown) and is directed by Ken Girotti (24).
• CCI Entertainment has closed a deal for a quartet of its kiddie programs with Norway’s NRK – selling its copro Erky Perky (26 x 30), seasons one and two of Ghost Trackers (40 x 30), plus seasons one and two of Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs (104 x 30) to NRK 1 and NRK 3. The deal also includes Bigfoot Presents: Meteor and the Mighty Monster Trucks (52 x 30), produced by Brandissimo.
• Seville International has picked up Ma fille, mon ange, and will represent the Quebec box-office smash when it goes to market later this year at Cannes. The French-language thriller by director Alexis Durand-Brault and Remstar Productions is distributed domestically by Alliance Atlantis Vivafilm and has earned more than $2 million in Quebec.
• Producers Jennifer MacLennan (Charming Grace)and Larissa Giroux (Kardia) have optioned the Patrick Tarr book The Underwood, with plans to adapt it into a feature film with writer/director Will Pascoe (Degrassi: The Next Generation). The story follows a reclusive jazz pianist who falls in love with a troubled cocktail waitress.
• The sales wing of Shaftesbury Films has sold its Depression-era TV movie Booky Makes Her Mark in Europe and the Middle East. Booky, based on the trilogy of books by Bernice Thurman Hunter, will air on the U.K.’s Sky TV, Israel’s Reshet-TV, Netherlands Public Broadcasting and TV3 in Ireland. A sequel is slated for production later this year.
• Portfolio Entertainment has closed four major deals for its Carl Squared – selling the tween-aimed 2D toon to broadcasters in Australia and Europe. ABC Australia has picked up the second and third seasons, totaling 26 half-hours, while its digital spin-off ABC2 has added all three. VRT in Belgium, meanwhile, has come back for season two, while Poland’s Canal + Cyfrowy has snapped up seasons two and three. The 52 x 30 comedy about a clone who wreaks havoc on his teen creator already airs on Germany’s Nickelodeon, Jetix in the Netherlands, Noga in Israel and here on Teletoon.