Vancouver: Shan Tam and Michael Parker, the wife/husband team at Maple Ridge Films, were gloating this month as Rumble In the Bronx, the action-comedy they line produced here two years ago starring Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan cuffed its way into the top box office position at theaters across Canada and the u.s.

When Rumble was released in Asia last year, it was the highest grossing film of all time in Hong Kong, where the competition amongst action fare is almost as brutal as Chan’s kung fu kicks.

Following a bidding war for North American rights, New Line snapped up the film hoping this quirky Chinese comedy combined with Chan’s charm would translate into ample American audiences. And it did. In its first week alone it grossed us$9.9 million, not bad when you consider they made it for only $15 million.

Tam and Parker hope they can capitalize on this success and their extensive Hong Kong connections when it comes to getting their own feature project off the ground this year. Entitled Lunch With Charles, it’s a cross-cultural romantic comedy about two couples, one Asian, the other Caucasian, on a road trip to Banff who inadvertently wind up traveling with each other’s spouses.

Parker, who wrote the script and who also hopes to make his directorial debut on the film, says Lunch With Charles will likely be made as a Hong Kong coproduction, with Tam producing under their company, Holiday Pictures.

Award-winning dop Bill Wong, currently in Vancouver shooting the John Woo feature Once A Thief for Alliance Communications, has also expressed interest in shooting the low-budget picture in Vancouver late summer.

Meanwhile, Tam is keeping the company coffers replenished by line producing a new dramatic television series in Vancouver for Mainland China broadcaster Kwonguang Zhou. Executive produced by Hong Kong-based Toby Wai, New York Tempest follows the adventures of a Chinese detective who comes to Canada for a vacation and ends up embroiled in the investigation of a myriad of crimes.

Even though the principal roles are Chinese, 20 one-hour episodes of the series will provide substantial opportunities for Canadian actors to gain international exposure in supporting roles, which will all be cast locally.

Hong Kong’s Stanley Fung and Woody Low will direct the series, which begins production next month.

Not all laughs

‘Yes indeed, comedy is serious business,’ says executive producer Scott Kennedy, who along with producer Rose Lam (Double Happiness) wrapped production last month on Channel 92, Vancouver’s first stab at a tv sitcom pilot. ‘It went well, but it was a lot harder than we ever imagined.

‘The whole process was a terrific education,’ adds Kennedy. ‘Sitcom scripts, we discovered, don’t read very funny; there’s such a controlled structure that it’s really the characters who bring the words to life.’

Writers Dean Haglund and Ian Boothby spent the last six months in extensive rewrites with l.a.-based Canadian writer/creative consultant Peter Torokvei, who counts WKRP In Cincinnati and Armed and Dangerous among his credits.

What they arrived at, says Kennedy, is kind of a wkrp/sctv/ Larry Sanders Show hybrid. He says Channel 92, about a male-dominated sports channel forced to make the format switch to a woman’s channel in order to survive, ‘delivers smart humor and clever wit while taking an irreverent look at political correctness in the ’90s and the never-ending battle of the sexes. It’s part sketch comedy and situation comedy.’

Channel 92 was the winner of Laugh Chance, an innovative program designed to encourage new programming concepts for tv cosponsored by British Columbia Film and u.tv. It was selected over 85 other entries.

Directed by James Head, audiences will get a chance to see whether the laugh track holds up when Channel 92, starring Rod Crawford, Gary Jones, Teryl Rothery, Ellie Harvie, Christine Lippa, Haglund and Boothby, airs on u.tv March 30 at 11:00 p.m.

Silver linings

Ian Pearson, executive producer/ creative godfather of ReBoot, the 100% computer-animated series produced in Vancouver by BLT Productions and Toronto-based Alliance, views abc’s decision to dump the show following the network’s acquisition by Disney as ‘good news.’

‘The show didn’t fit in with abc’s new regime, but it’s actually good news for us, because now the show can be aimed at an older audience – for which it was really intended – and it allows us more independence through syndication of the series.’

Earlier this year, Christopher Brough, Pearson and Alliance restructured their partnership and formed a new company, Mainframe Entertainment, to begin production on another cgi series, Transformers: Beast Wars.

Executive produced by Brough, Pearson, Steven DeNure and Stephane Reichel, the lion’s share of financing for 26 episodes of the half-hour, first-run syndication series will come from a hefty merchandising deal with Hasbro Toys.

Jonathan Goodwill, producer of Transformers, says in order to create the new series about two warring races of robots, Mainframe will be tripling in size and hiring 30 new animators. He says Mainframe has aspirations of being not only a producer of cgi programming but a major supplier as well.

Plans for ’96 also include the possibility of a major feature film, five imax projects and some service production for Universal to keep the cash flow rolling and make more efficient use of their facilities and staff.

Outrage

Producer/director Rick Stevenson (Some Girls, Crooked Hearts), who last year garnered a Genie nomination for Magic In The Water, is busy stick-handling the offers from tnt, Universal and Alliance on his latest project, Outrage, a feature film about the remarkable transformation of Greenpeace founder David McTaggart from cynical land developer to eco warrior.

Stevenson made his name in l.a. on the film Some Girls before moving up to Vancouver to lead an idyllic life aboard a houseboat in False Creek, producing Crooked Hearts and Arctic Blue with producer Colleen Nystedt’s company, New City Productions. He then linked up with Pacific Motion Pictures to make his directorial debut on Magic In The Water.

Says Stevenson: ‘I came here because I wanted to live where I work, and this is definitely a great place to work.’

Stevenson, who also penned the script for Outrage, is exploring the possibilities of making the film a French coproduction, given the strong French Greenpeace connection. He and pmp ceo Tony Allard were recently in Los Angeles meeting with agents and talking deals on the film.

Richard Gere, who returns to Vancouver this summer to star with Anthony Hopkins in the Columbia TriStar feature Bookworm, has expressed interest in the lead. Scripts, however, have also gone out to Nick Nolte and Pierce Brosnan.

Production on Outrage is tentatively slated for the end of ’96.

In other news from pmp, Magic In The Water is due to hit video stores in April.

And A Boy Called Hate, produced by pmp in 1994, with James Caan, Mitch Caan and Elliott Gould starring and Mitch Marcus directing, has just won both the jury prize and audience favorite for best dramatic film at the Annonay International Film Festival in France. Distributed by Norstar Entertainment in Canada, it’s scheduled for its North American theatrical release in May.