Vancouver: A steady supply of American feature productions is going to be required should b.c. be able to meet or beat its 1999 production tally of $1 billion in direct spending.

Muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger will flex some dollars this way with On the Sixth Day, a Columbia TriStar feature that wraps April 20 after four months of production. Arnold plays a family man replaced by a clone – an action-thriller in case you were wondering.

(A tidbit: location fees paid to Vancouver’s main library, which provides a backdrop for key scenes, will allow the institution to stay open all summer. Normally, the library shuts down for two weeks in August because of budgetary constraints.)

Paramount, meanwhile, is back in town with a big feature – Along Came a Spider, the prequel to the 1997 sleeper hit Kiss the Girls. Screen veteran Morgan Freeman reprises the role of Alex Cross, the forensic psychologist he gave life to in Girls, which costarred Ashley Judd.

Based on the 1993 thriller by James Patterson, Along Came a Spider has all the elements of a thriller: multiple personalities, courtroom drama, serial killers and kidnapped private school kids. Production runs Feb. 28 to May 17.

Not to be outdone, New Line is in Vancouver shooting Bones March 1 to May 3. Starring Snoop Dog (who has dropped the Doggy) and Pam Grier, the horror is about a gangster named Jimmy Bones (Dog) who returns 20 years after his murder to seek revenge. The medium-sized feature is scheduled for release Oct. 27.

New Line was last in Vancouver to shoot Final Destination (formerly Flight 180) with Vancouver actor Devon Sawa. That film will be in theatres March 17.

Talks are underway at New Line to do Jason 10, the next in the Friday the 13th feature film series, in Toronto.

And Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell will be in town to shoot 3000 Miles to Graceland, an independent feature by Franchise Pictures. They’ll play Elvis impersonators who pull a casino heist. Production runs March 13 to May 20 and will be the third film in as many months for Franchise. Previously, it backed the action flick Get Carter with Sylvester Stallone and it’s bankrolling Sean Penn’s feature The Pledge with Jack Nicholson.

*Buddy, can you spare a million?

low on bucks but long heart, funding agency British Columbia Film says if it can’t pay for all the developing projects it wants, at least it will tell people about them. Maybe they will take up the cause.

Fourteen film scripts, culled from 68 submissions, have made the shortlist for a new Television and Film Financing Program kitty called Development Program ‘B.’

Through this program, B.C. Film offers recoupable development advances to British Columbia drama writers of big-screen projects that may not have secured interest from the marketplace.

In the next phase of the program, shortlisted producer/writer teams will pitch their project to B.C. Film. Winners will get the good news later this spring.

Projects up for consideration involve experienced creative talent from television, documentaries, short films, feature films and even entertainment journalism. They include:

* Alaska Highway Two-Step (producers, Nicholas Kendall/ Gretchen Jordan-Bastow; writer, Laurie Finstad-Knizhnick)

* The Critical Pound (producer/writer, James Dunnison)

* Children and Idiots (producers, Andrew Currie/Blake Corbet; writers, Trent Carlson/Grant Bundy)

* Desolation Sound (producer, Scott Weber; writer, Glynis Davies)

* El Camino (producer/writer, Blake Corbet)

* Flower and Garnet (producer, Trish Dolman; writer, Keith Behrman)

* Karena and Eve (producers, Julia Kwan/Jessica Bradford; writer, Kwan)

* Punk Not Dead (producer, Penelope Buitenhuis; writers, Buitenhuis/Mia Wood)

* Rosser Rats (producer, Karen Lam; writer, Rick Hohn)

* Slipped A Mickey (producer, Mary Anne Waterhouse; writer, David Brisbin)

* The Taxidermist (producers, Jonathon Kay/Ron Chartier/Joseph Fitzpatrick; writer, Rodger Cove)

* That Summer (producer, Simon Capet; writer, Ken Eisner)

* To Love and To Perish (producer, Bill Thumm; writers, Dan Kalla/Geoff Lyster/Duncan Miller)

* The Trick at the End of the World (producer/writer, Justin MacGregor)

‘While we cannot fund all projects on the shortlist, we feel confident that all of these projects are worthy of support,’ says Jennifer Snyder, operations manager of the film and television program.

*James, Dick and Bernard

Shavick Entertainment of Vancouver is doing more work for u.s. specialty E! Entertainment, which kicked off its first series production in Vancouver with the anthology-based entertainment spoof show Hollywood Off-Ramp, which continues in production until April 21.

The new project – Becoming Dick – is a comedic mow about a frustrated and struggling actor who has to deal with the fallout after he gets nasty in order to further his flagging career. It stars Robert Wagner and will be in production Feb. 28 to March 22.

And in other Shavick news, Emmy- and Peabody-Award winning producer/writer Bernard Rothman – who also hails from James Shavick’s home ville of Montreal – has signed on to find new projects and coproduction deals in the u.s.

Rothman has won Emmys for Danny Kaye at the Met and the Vancouver-shot Lamb Chop’s Play-Along, among other television productions.