Cannes, France: If program sales are the soupe du jour for Canadians at MIP-TV, the search for partners in coproduction has become the hottest selling hors d’oeuvre. With ad revenues and licence fees down, specialty channels up, and the sale-and-leaseback tax incentive renewed in the U.K. (while German incentives appear to be shrinking), coproduction is the spritzer in the Canadian production finance mix.

At Toronto’s Decode Entertainment, the Angela Anaconda franchise still burns white-hot, with a feature in production and work furiously afoot on the third season of the series, while the company is busy targeting the teen-plus demographic with its new animated series Undergrads.

Introduced to journalists on a ship off the starboard side of the Palais, Undergrads is the creation of 21-year-old New Yorker Pete Williams, who won an MTV animation contest with the concept for the series.

The edgy net, looking for its next Beavis and Butthead, put the series into ‘three years of development,’ according to Williams, until hooking up with coproducers Decode and MTV Animation for 13 half-hours. Teletoon Canada is on board.

Fireworks Entertainment, which had a busy market, says it has made its ‘first foray in the competitive U.K. terrestrial market’ with a sale of season one of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda to Channel 4, which has an option to buy subsequent seasons. A second cycle is greenlit in the U.S. Fireworks says it’s the highest rated one-hour in syndication, adding it has made a video deal for Andromeda with Contender Entertainment Group, seasons I and II, for the U.K. and Eire. Andromeda stars Kevin Sorbo as captain of the ‘intergalactic starship.’

Nelvana buzz

Buzz around the market was that Nelvana would soon release some trend-type news (something beyond the potential Corus acquisition of the Cinar library). Meantime, on a windy, smoky afternoon at the booth, the efficient Cathy Laughton, managing director of Nelvana’s London office, enumerated lots of sales. Laughton noted Medabot has gone to all cable satellite channels in the U.K., including Sky 1, Nickelodeon, Fox, Cartoon, ITV and BBC. Cardcaptors, for which Nelvana holds rights for North America and the U.K., went to ITV.

The evergreen Little Bear franchise is growing with a US$3-million hour-long movie for TV called Wild Bear. BBC is set to buy the film. Better suited to Channel 4 are older-skewing toons Pelswick and Quads.

Laughton says C4 had the first season of Pelswick and ordered 13 more half-hours. Quads is set to launch on the channel in 2002, after 11 p.m.

Laughton is ‘catching up’ Channel 5 with Nelvana inventory, including 65 eps of Rolie Polie Olie for the post-Disney window, 65 of venerable Babar and 39 of darkest Redwall.

Laughton reported Nick U.K. carted off a basketful of half-hours, including new episodes of Redwall, Franklin and Little Bear, plus Maggie and the Ferocious Beast with U.K. voices. Fox Kids picked up 26 half-hours of Braceface and plans to order more, for airing in Scandinavia, Latin America and the Netherlands. Fox Kids also bought all the Franklins for the Netherlands, plus the Franklin and the Green Knight movie.

At Alliance Atlantis, EVP of TV distribution, Marnie Sanderson, says although buyers require more decision-making, the AAC sales team was busy. While AAC reported numerous sales between NATPE and MIP, Sanderson still had interesting notes.

The Judy Garland miniseries Me & My Shadows, which aired on ABC in February with more than 20 million viewers for Part 1, will hit the Hallmark Asian, European and Latin American satellite feeds. Sanderson says for C.S.I., the CBS drama that scored big with U.S. primetime audiences, AAC was ‘filling in sales gaps’ with discussions with TSR Switzerland, French Belgium and ORF Austria. AAC sold its Canadian lawyer drama The Associates to Showtime Mideast.

For AAC Fact, hot science and health titles included Gladiatrix, Extreme Body Parts and Offspring. Lifestyle programming sold includes: Secret Safaris, a one-hour doc about arms smuggling in Africa, to SVT Sweden and RTE Ireland; This Small Space, to Ananey Israel and to Home Choice video-on-demand in the U.K.; and Skin Deep, to Discovery Health U.K.

Salter’s strong sales

Halifax-based Salter Street Films had a ‘phenomenal’ MIP, reporting its strongest sales in four years. Stephen Kelley, VP of international sales, says TV1 Australia and Sky NZ prebought season IV of LEXX, now in production on its fourth season with 24 new hours for the SCI FI Channel U.S. and Citytv Canada. Seasons I-III went to Sony AXN in Spain and Japan.

Kelley sold seasons III and IV of Flightpath, now shooting its fifth season of 13 one-hours in Toronto, to Discovery Europe before MIP, and sold V at the market. Digi-channel Discovery Wings in the U.S. took the new season.

XYZ Australia stepped up for a package of movies.

Kelley says he sold the 3 x 60-minute doc series Cod to Media Park, Spain. Season I of Loving Spoonfuls, which is greenlit for another 26 half-hours for WTN, sold to Israel and Finland. Meanwhile, Kink, 13 documentary half-hours with an entirely different take on loving, sold to TV Metropole in Norway. Showcase in Canada launched Kink April 7.

The imX/Funbag series For Better or For Worse, 16 half-hours, sold to SVT Sweden, while The Itch, made for Comedy Net in Canada and headed for a second season, went to Comedy Channel Australia.

Thomas Howe of Vancouver-based Sextant Entertainment and VP of coproduction Deborah Drisdell say the market ‘generated a huge amount of interest in our development slate.’ Howe expects a big year for production, with such new titles as Rabbit in a Hole going into production along with CGI series Micronauts, which is presold to CTM Germany and YTV.

Sales include 28 half-hours of Treks in a Wild World, a copro with Pilot Productions of the U.K., going to Israel Educational Television, and to Singapore. RAI Italy will take eight eps and run them as part of a magazine show. The prodco’s new comedy, Aaagh! It’s the Mr. Hell Show (13 x 30, a copro with Peafur Productions of the U.K.) sold to SBS and to Comedy Channel in Australia.

Drisdell says Sextant has announced a deal with Ellipsanime of France to coproduce and co-exploit four animated series of 26 eps each. Two are expected to be produced this year. Sextant is also talking with French coprods about an official treaty copro for a 90-minute MOW, to shoot this summer, about Canadian oil workers who were held hostage in Colombia.

Catalyst Entertainment sported a wide range of program types at MIP. On the lifestyle front, sales execs Jill Keenleyside and Giannina Antola (group head of distribution for Gullane Entertainment) saw strong interest in Healthy Home, 26 half-hours from Omni Films, which airs on Discovery in the U.S. and HGTV in Canada. Market sales included Discovery Latin America, Metro TV in Indonesia and possibly NHK Japan.

Also in the better living vein, Entrada sold to Discovery Latin America, the APT group of PBS stations and Travel Europe.

For kids, Catalyst launched Harry and the Dinosaurs, 26 x 12 minutes, based on the book Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs, and looks to create a Canada/U.K. copro. For preteens, an ‘intergalactic comedy’ called Dominion is on offer. Begun as an interstitial series, Dominion is to be 26 x 26 minutes, produced by Fireside Favourites, with Gullane Entertainment to distribute, anticipating a fall 2002 launch on Channel 4.

Keenleyside says Disney bought 44 x 20-minute eps of It’s a Mystery, described as a youth-oriented X-Files. Disney also bought the movie Virtual Mom. She also recapped sales deals cinched during a recent swing through Asia and the South Pacific. ABC Australia renewed Thomas the Tank Engine, allowing Nickelodeon to have a window. ABC also bought 26 half-hours of Eckhart, plus a special, while Nickelodeon Australia took 78 x 5 minutes of Thomas.

Antola, meantime, sold a package of films, including Virtual Mom, What Katy Did, Cinderella and Me and Thomas and the Magic Railroad, to Televisa Mexico.

Ellis Releasing announced it will distribute 100 hours of Channel 5 in-house and independently produced product, in all genres, for which C5 has international rights. Stephen Ellis says C5, which just turned four, has recently surpassed the 5% threshold in audience share and has only had an international distrib arm for one year.

Among the C5 titles is Headless, ‘a sexy thriller, like American Psycho meets Twin Peaks,’ consisting of 10 half-hours. ‘Channel 5 is a little different than your average British TV company. In the U.K., they’re going after a market like Fox goes after in the U.S.’

Ellis was seeking Canadian and European presales on a new 3 x 60-minute travel/wildlife series, Wild Sites, which is headed for Travel U.S. Ellis prefers to presell the States, Europe and Canada before going into production. Ellis was also distributing such third-party product as Room Service, 39 half-hours from Primevista Television in Toronto.

Oasis International president Peter Emerson went to MIP seeking presales for an exciting new science drama series from Toronto’s Shaftesbury Films. The Aladdin Project is to be 13 live-action hours, budgeted at $1.2 million each, in which a ‘crack team of scientists will go all over the world to investigate new scientific research in cloning.’ Ann Scott and Patrick Cassaveti will produce the primetime show for CTV, which brought in Landscape’s Bob Cooper and Christina Jennings as co-execs.

Roy MacGregor’s hot hockey/mystery series for kids, Screech Owls, was also on front-burner discussion for Oasis, which was selling 13 half-hours of the Shaftesbury series, (YTV in Canada), and landed a MIP sale to Discovery Kids and Discovery. It will go to air in June on Saturday mornings. Emerson says the live-action series, budgeted at about $500,000 per, has been picked up for a second season of 13 eps, and may go to 26.

More mysteries

For grown-ups, Oasis spotlit Shaftesbury’s fifth and sixth movies based on Gail Bowen’s series of books. Budgeted at about $4 million each, Verdict In Blood and A Killing Spring will shoot this summer. Emerson says Carlton America distributed the first four Bowen titles.

Sullivan Entertainment may be among prodcos tapping into the sale-leaseback structure in the U.K., with Neverspace, expected to be a Canada/U.K. copro with Martin Gates Productions (Wind in the Willows). Plans are for 26 half-hours and a total budget of $11 million.

Sullivan’s animation unit will get busy this fall on Space Pet, 13 half-hours about a girl raised by a computer who is adopted by earthlings and raised as a pet. Looking for European presales, Kevin Sullivan says the budget is $5.4 million all-in.

The Toronto prodco has also developed 13 eps of the kid/teen series Pennington, a half-hour, live-action comedy-drama from two PR writers, Jane Ford and Paul Pogue. Pennington is a music prodigy/football star who doesn’t really like music – a bit of a Commitments feel here. Total budget is $5.4 million.

Risk management

Regina’s Minds Eye is gearing up for a fall first-window launch for Myth Quest, its new $22-million treaty coproduction – with Berlin’s TiMe Produktions – on Showcase Television, with a second window in January on CBC. Minds Eye managing director Paul Black said at the market he sold the series to PBS for a primetime launch in January. He says the Germans have ordered 13 additional hours of the program, with each hour exploring a different myth, and the hope is to shoot this fall. Minds Eye holds world rights.

Also from ME is Risk, 26 x 30 eps, a coproduction with Risk Television of London, which began shooting last fall and is to be delivered this fall to C5 U.K. and Showcase Canada. Risk is about college-age kids growing up on their own in the English capital, and Black is selling internationally, outside U.K. and Canada.

Jan Rofekamp of Films Transit, Montreal, was selling a very strong slate. A highlight was Gimme Shelter, the renowned 1971 Rolling Stones film from Albert Maysles, which has been digitally remastered for a theatrical rerelease and is currently ‘in festivals everywhere.’ Rofekamp says a special screening is planned for the Toronto fest this fall.

Vancouver’s Peace Arch Entertainment brought a varied slate to MIP, looking for sales, and partners for development projects. On The Immortal, its 22-part, hour-long series budgeted at about US$1 million per ep, Peace Arch exec VP Kent Wingerak reported that Western International has cleared more than 80% of markets for U.S. syndication, while Hilltop Entertainment handles foreign sales.

Wingerak says Peace Arch is talking to buyers about interest in a fourth season of First Wave, which has 60 hours in the can. A second season of 18 half-hours of Big Sound has been ordered by Global TV, and Wingerak also brought some feature/TV movies to MIP. He describes Wired For Sound as Children of a Lesser God meets Witness. The film is headed to City. For Global is The Impossible Elephant, for which Carlton America holds foreign rights and Peace Arch has U.S. TV rights.

Looks like there will have to be still more MIP news next issue… *