The WB has pitched its tent in Toronto’s concrete jungle for the season-one shoot of Tarzan – a retelling of the Edgar Rice Burroughs story with Australian model Travis Fimmel as a modernized Lord of the Jungle. The new action/adventure series transplants Tarzan to New York City and, it is hoped, will ape the success of the net’s similarly teen-aimed, B.C.-shot Smallville.

Mitch Pileggi, best known as FBI heavy Walter Skinner on The X-Files, takes on the villain role as Tarzan’s evil industrialist uncle, and stars along with newbie Sarah Wayne Potts (Dragnet) as Jane, who has been rewritten as a streetwise cop. Miguel Nunez Jr. (Juwanna Man) and a Rottweiler, the new Cheetah, appear along with Canucks Andrew Jackson and Fulvio Cecere.

Tarzan is produced by Laura Ziskin, best known for Spider-Man, David Gerber (The Lost Battalion) and P.K. Simonds (Party of Five). Tessa Abdul is production coordinator.

One hopes that, lacking vines, this Tarzan will know better than to swing on power lines. Tarzan airs this fall on WB and Global and shoots until December.

Original gangsta

Redemption, an F/X MOW shooting in Toronto until early September, stars Jamie Foxx (Ali) as reformed hoodlum Stan ‘Tookie’ Williams – who founded the Crips gang in L.A. and, much later, while on death row, was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with street kids.

Director Vondie Curtis Hall (Glitter) works under producers Rudy Langlais, Van Spurgeon, Jon Katzman and Marcus King. Kristine Gilbert is production coordinator.

The dark side

Puppetry impresario Robert Mills has formed a new production company, and is looking to shoot the first of four features this fall under the banner of Hunky Dorey Entertainment.

Founder of Toronto prodco Radical Sheep Productions and its puppet design spin-off, The Sheep Shop, Mills has, since 1985, attached his producer credit to such notable titles as The Big Comfy Couch and Puppets Who Kill. But Mills says he missed doing hands-on creative work and, thus, formed Hunkey Dorey to turn out genre movies and shows for the broadcast and home-video markets.

He’s revealing little about his first four projects – Kahli of the Mist, Avatar, Magda and DNA – except that they are dark sci-fi thrillers, aimed at kids, to be filmed back to back in Toronto. The nine-time Gemini winner will cowrite, produce and direct the first of these, Kahli, with $500,000 of private funds. Mills is still attached to both Sheep companies.

Making music

Up in Ottawa, GAPC Entertainment is midway through shooting the life stories of musical greats Oscar Peterson and Maria Pellegrini.

Director Ron Allen and DOP Colin Boettcher got to work on a Life and Times segment about Peterson in May, and will follow the Mississauga-based jazzman across North America until early fall, putting in face time along the way with crooners Diana Krall and Benny Green. GAPC’s Hoda Elatawi and Ken Stewart produce.

The $250,000 doc, Keeping the Groove Alive, is backed by CBC and a double-shot of CTF cash, having made the cut at both the LFP and EIP in fall 2002. It is expected to air late this year, followed by second runs on SCN and Knowledge Network.

Films Transit International in Montreal is handling world distribution, B.C.-based Filmwest Associates has North America.

Meanwhile, Stewart is shooting and lighting a one-hour doc about soprano extraordinaire Pellegrini for Bravo!, and will go into post after a full spring and summer of shooting in the U.K., Italy and Toronto.

Canada’s Butterfly will cost under $200,000, with help from CTF’s LFP, and will air sometime in 2004. Again, SCN has the second window and Film West distributes in North America. Michael Cowles produces with Eletawi and line producer Jennifer Delaney.

The company has been repositioning itself since 1999, when it stepped back from service work in favor of its own projects, mostly docs and biographies. GAPC recently turned out a high-definition short about the history of the Acadians for a new cultural center in Nova Scotia and is re-using that footage to pitch a TV doc. The untitled project will put in for CTF this fall.

Stewart and Eletawi say they have four other limited series in ‘advanced development’ – including Erotika, a sexy look at art history to be copro’d with Italy’s Scala Group and the Cameron Thomson Group in Toronto. They are also waiting to hear back from APTN on a proposed mini, with Gil Cardinal (Big Bear) attached to direct.

Five easy Faces

The boys at Five Faces Films are getting a lot of mileage out of a pair of characters they introduced five years ago on the short-lived Y B Normal?. Hank and Mike – two blue-collar Easter bunnies – first appeared on the Comedy Network sketch show back in 1998, played by Thomas Michael and Paulo Mancini. Their pal, director Matthiew Klinck, then used the low-brow lupines in a short film, seen frequently on The Movie Network and The Independent Film Channel, and is set to direct a big-screen version this fall on a $2-million budget – making use of studio space in Toronto and the industrial backdrop of Hamilton.

Hank and Mike, coproduced by Five Faces and Darius Films, hoping for Telefilm Canada cash, is a dark comedy about both rabbits struggling to get by after they lose their jobs at the Easter egg factory. Cowriters Michael and Mancini reprise their roles, starring alongside Gary Farmer (Republic of Love) and James Tolkan (Dick Tracy). Michael also produces with Five Faces’ Jonathan Collard and Darius’s Nicholas Tabarrok. Ray Dumas is DOP and Russell Chick is production designer.

Five Faces is also making the rounds with a demo tape for Greg & Gentillon, a mock reality show about two Quebecois musicians trying to make it big in English Canada.