Having launched last fall, Toronto production company 49th Parallel, headed by Noah Segal, Steve Hoban and Philip Mellows, has several projects moving forward.

Nothing, the third feature by Cube director Vincenzo Natali, will go to camera in Toronto for about four weeks in May. Segal describes the comedic fable as ‘Withnail and I in space,’ with a couple of dead-end schmoes who subsist on ketchup sandwiches wishing away the rest of the world. Script is by The Drews (a.k.a. Andrew Lowery and Andrew Miller, of Boys and Girls). Miller will star alongside David Hewlett (Treed Murray), and longtime Natali DOP Derek Rogers will lens, but the F/X-laden production has yet to choose between 35mm and high-definition video.

German distributor Senator International has world sales excluding Japan, U.S. and Canada for the US$4-million film. Japanese distributor Klockworx has rights in Japan, where Cube was a hit, and Alliance Atlantis has Canadian rights.

49th Parallel will also exec produce the US$3-million Canada/New Zealand/U.K. copro Paper, Scissors, Stone, with support from Lions Gate Films, the New Zealand Film Commission and U.K.-based Studio 8.

Written and directed by Kiwi newcomer Jesse Warn, the thriller will be produced by Canadian Suzanne L. Berger (Top of the Food Chain) and New Zealand’s Matthew Metcalfe. The film, shooting in Toronto in April, is about an orphaned female student obsessed by events that can’t be rationally explained. Cast so far includes Carly Pope (Orange County), Rena Owen (Once Were Warriors) and Adrian Paul (Highlander).

The prodco is looking at the fall to shoot Ginger Snaps 2: The Curse and Ginger Snaps 3: The Addiction. Follow-ups to last year’s chick werewolf flick, the films will feature two different writers and directors soon to be determined. Lions Gate has U.S and foreign and Seville Pictures is releasing in Canada. Segal says the new films will maintain the original’s comic edge but amplify the horror. Budgets will be as big or bigger than the original’s US$3.5 million.

Ryan is a CG film by Oscar-nominated director Chris Landreth (The End) about former National Film Board animator Ryan Larkin (Walking), himself Oscar-nominated. Larkin was a prodigy in the 1960s; by the late 1990s he was panhandling in Montreal. Landreth has interviewed Larkin extensively and will build the animated film around those sound bytes. The NFB has expressed interest and Segal expects financing to be finalized within one month.

49th Parallel is also in development with Bruce McDonald on Lucky Ho, described as ‘a John Waters movie with kung fu chicks in prison’.

McDonald finds out How She Makes a Dress

More on McDonald: the director has shot 20% of How She Makes a Dress, a documentary on Toronto fashion designer Crystal Siemens, known for her boldly unconventional shows. Siemens has previously turned heads for fashion shows held on the gravel of vacant lots, accompanied by industrial sounds such as jackhammers. The film follows the fashion process from conception to unveiling, focusing on the manufacturing of a dress for a ‘wild and wonderful movie star’ yet to be named.

Produced by Shadow Shows’ Connie Hitzeroth, the doc began shooting Sept. 21 and will follow the designer from Toronto to Saskatchewan, Vancouver, New York and Milan. The film allows McDonald to indulge his experimental side, such as incorporating his format of choice, black-and-white Super 8.

Although viewers might be familiar with the behind-the-scenes of the fashion biz through programs such as FashionTelevision, Hitzeroth says what is most exciting about this project is the collaboration between McDonald and Siemens.

‘It’s fabulous [to bring together] two very independent figures who had no fear in the face of all the tried-and-true methods of developing a successful business,’ Hitzeroth says. ‘It’s a project that is nurtured and fed through the energies of both the principals involved.’

With no distributor yet committed, the project could be a full-length feature, although Hitzeroth is keeping in mind the broadcast marketability of a one-hour.

Blizzard in Toronto

A Blizzard has descended on the province, but unfortunately it isn’t the meteorological kind. The producers of the theatrical Christmas flick Blizzard have had to manufacture a whole lot of fake snow to make Toronto in February look like Toronto in February.

The Toronto-based Knightscove Entertainment feature marks the directorial debut of LeVar Burton, best known for his role on Star Trek: Voyager, but who has also helmed many episodes in the Star Trek franchise. The Feb. 18 to April 4 shoot will take place mostly in Toronto, followed by four or five days in Quebec City, which will sub for the North Pole, with the Chateau Frontenac as Santa’s digs.

Written by Murray McRae (Touching Wild Horses) from a story by Knightscove CEO Leif Bristow and his wife Agnes, Blizzard tells the story of young Jess (Bogus’ Jennifer Pisana), who is consoled by her Aunt Millie (Secrets & Lies’ Brenda Blethyn) when her best friend moves away. Millie tells her the story of how another lonely girl, Katie (newcomer Zoe Warner), formed a magical friendship with St. Nick’s oddball reindeer Blizzard (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg).

The cast of Blizzard also includes Kevin Pollak (The Wedding Planner) as Santa’s nasty elf Archimedes and Christopher Plummer. Exec producers are Ralph Winter (X-Men) and Robert Schwartz (Iron Will) of Wardenclyffe Entertainment. Producers are Bristow and J. Miles Dale (Wolf Girl) in association with New York’s Holedigger Films. Overseas Filmgroup is handling international distribution. Budget is US$12 million.

Knightscove is also finishing post on the theatrical kids releases Virginia’s Run, to be screened at Berlin Kinderfilmfest, and Kart Racer. The company is seeking to finalize theatrical distribution for both. In 1999, Knightscove raised capital to form a $100-million production fund to produce or finance a minimum of eight family films.

Lucky Luke in

Wellington feature

Would you say the ’72 Summit Series was the pinnacle of Canadian history prior to the recent Olympic Gold? It seems we can’t help but revisit it, and neither can Peter Wellington (Joe’s So Mean to Josephine). In May, the director will be helming the four-week Toronto shoot of Luck, a feature he penned about a group of men that gets into gambling trouble during the famed Canada-USSR hockey tourney.

The cast includes up-and-comer Luke Kirby (Lost and Delirious), Jed Rees (The Chris Isaak Show), Sarah Polley, Sergio Di Zio (The Boondock Saints) and Noam Jenkins (Century Hotel). Luc Montpellier (Khaled) is the director of photography.

Luck is a production of The Film Farm. Simone Urdl (Jack & Jill) is producing with Jennifer Weiss (coproducer of the TIFF Preludes). Urdl has worked with Atom Egoyan for several years, associate producing the forthcoming Ararat, and Egoyan is on board as executive producer with Rhombus Media’s Danny Irons.

Odeon Films has Canadian distribution and France’s TF1 is handling international sales. Financing for the $2-million film has come from Telefilm Canada, the Harold Greenberg Fund and The Movie Network. The expected delivery date for the film is fall 2003.