With plans to hire for one or two more positions, Robert Lantos will take five former Alliance employees with him to staff his new prodco Serendipity Point Films. The ex-Alliance chairman and ceo has also bought a building on Price Street in Toronto to house the new company, which will produce projects under an exclusive agreement with Alliance Atlantis Communications.

Serendipity will set up temporary shop at the Cineplex Odeon building on Yonge Street (pb, Oct. 5) until next summer when renovations to the new building are completed. The five former Alliance employees sticking with Lantos are Jeff Kulbak, former controller, Alliance productions; Julia Rosenberg, ex-director, development and production, Alliance Pictures; and executive assistants Cherri Campbell, Lorraine Lanoue and Beverly Warren.

Lantos says Serendipity will also have a ‘permanent presence’ in Los Angeles that will most likely be headquartered at the new aac offices in Santa Monica.

Added to Serendipity’s already crowded slate that includes movie versions based on Mordecai Richler’s Barney’s Version and Tim Sandler’s Sex and Sunset, is David Cronenberg’s next project, for which few details are available.

Lantos confirms that Cronenberg will write the script for Serendipity following completion of his current film eXistenZ, which is now slated for an April ’99 release by aac in Canada and Dimension in the u.s. The film had originally been slotted for a February release, a date Lantos says he had always lobbied against.

Despite rumors to the contrary, Lantos says there are no plans to launch eXistenZ – a cerebral virtual reality thriller – on the festival circuit with a debut at Cannes.

‘It’s too big a movie to risk it all at Cannes,’ says Lantos, who adds he would be open to screening eXistenZ ‘out of competition’ at the French festival if the film had already debuted in North America.

A Cannes debut for Oscar winner Istvan Szabo’s directorial effort A Taste Of Sunshine, starring Ralph Fiennes, is desired, but because the film is still shooting in Europe, Lantos says it may not be ready in time for Cannes.

Lantos is currently negotiating for the film rights to two book titles that he hopes to produce as tv movies for aac. He would not reveal the titles because the deals had not yet closed.