Second Highlander season tops

busy slate for Clermont in 1994

Montreal: Filmline International president Nicolas Clermont has a special talent when it comes to complex international deal-making. The veteran producer has announced yet another impressive production slate in 1994 – one tv series, two tv movies and a feature film with combined budgets in the order of $47 million.

Clermont says he’s been spending lots of time in London, Eng., where he does business with Screen Partners and others. This year’s slate, with more than half the financing from Canada, will be shot in Vancouver, Montreal, Prague and Paris.

Principal photography begins in July and goes through to February 1995 on the second season of Highlander: The Series. Financed equally by Filmline and Gaumont Television as an official Canada/ France coproduction, 14 hours will be shot in Vancouver and the final eight in Paris. The budget is $30 million.

cfcf-tv, the CTV Television Network affiliate in Montreal, has acquired rights to the 1993 season. Gaumont has the world rights. Rete Italia is the Italian distributor and Rysher is the first-run syndicator in the u.s. Filmline holds the Canadian rights and Clermont says he’s negotiating with interested Canadian networks.

Clermont is the majority coproducer with France’s Tele Images and Screen Partners on the first of two, two-hour tv movies in ‘The Young Classics Collection.’

Both films will be shot this summer on location in the spectacular castles of Prague and post-produced in Montreal. Ralph Thomas (Ticket to Heaven, The Terry Fox Story) will direct Young Ivanhoe. A u.k. director will be signed for the second movie.

But the best news from Clermont is a feature film called Rainbow, which actor/director Bob Hoskins will shoot in Montreal Aug. 8 through to Sept. 24.

Hoskins’ acting credits include Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Shattered, a dandy thriller, and Hook. His first directing experience was Raggedy Rawney.

Rainbow is based on an original screenplay from u.k. writer Ashley Sidaway and is a family fantasy adventure replete with 3D computer f/x.

‘Both Bob and I fell in love with the script. It’s a beautiful story for children,’ says Clermont.

Rainbow will inject nearly $10 million into the Montreal production economy, and is being coproduced with two British companies, Screen Partners and Winchester Pictures and with a German partner.

Montreal’s Elite Productions will cast the children’s roles and legendary u.k. cinematographer Freddy Francis (Cape Fear, Moby Dick) is the shoot’s dop.

Filmline has a 60% interest in Rainbow, which is being financed through coproductions and European presales, but the wily Clermont says he has a major u.s. studio on line.

The holiday’s over

it’s the first year in many that Transfilm producers Monique Mallette and Claude Leger (Le Vent du Wyoming, Le Palanquin des larmes) didn’t attend the Cannes Film Festival. They’re back in town following a well-deserved holiday in Guadeloupe after completing principal photography on Highlander III: The Magician (not to be confused with the Highlander series).

The dynamic Transfilm duo was able to pass on Cannes because Guy Collins of IAC Film Sales took charge of major market sales and parties at this year’s festival.

Now that Highlander III, a $34 million sci-fi action movie, is being edited by Yves Langlois at Sonolab, Leger and Mallette have a little more time to develop their latest project, L’Enfant fossile (Fossil Child).

The feature is being written by Paul Ohl, the screenwriter on Highlander III, and Pierre Magny, who’ll direct.

Set in the 1920s, L’Enfant fossile tells the story of a burned-out doctor who embarks on an exotic archaeological dig in a remote province of China. It’s an adventure film filled with prehistoric flashbacks, somewhat reminiscent of the 1982 Jean-Jacques Annaud and Denis Heroux film Quest for Fire.

The hope is to shoot in southern China in late 1994 if a coventure service arrangement can be worked out with one of the big Chinese film studios.

Highlander III: The Magician is set for a fall release. Malofilm Distribution is the Canadian distributor. Miramax will distribute in the u.s.

Cool-dude frogs

montreal animation house Productions Pascal Blais is hoping to iron out final contract details for a pilot called Les Frogs, an original series proposal from director Sylvain Chomet, who pitched it to Hanna-Barbera executives in Tinseltown earlier this year.

The story by Chomet, a French animator who’s been directing commercials with Blais for about a year, is about three hip frogs who play jazz in New York City.

The proposal took shape when Hanna-Barbera and its parent company, Turner Broadcasting System, invited coproduction proposals.

Blais producer Howard Huxham says the goal is to coproduce with the u.s. and Europe.

Blais’ 11-year-old shop produces commercials, animation and optical special effects for films – Peter Bromley and Elaine Despins just completed work on Michael Rubbo’s The Return of Tommy Tricker – and is also home to the city’s only motion-control studio.

In town

following weeks of filming in India, u.s. actors Deborah Hunter and Bruce Boxleitner and director Burton Field Brinckerhoff are in town for four more weeks of shooting on Kidnapped Princess.

In this six-hour miniseries from Italian producer Anselno Parrinello (Vendetta II), Hunter plays a doctor and maharaja’s daughter and Boxleitner (Crosswinds) is a police officer and the maharani’s love interest.

pm Manon Bougie (Mon amie Max, Reunion) says the shoot features kidnappers, dope dealers and lots of stunts, and landed in Montreal because the producers wanted a u.s. look. Jean-Baptiste Tard is the production designer. The series has been presold to Italian television.

Telefilm comes on board

with the new funding year less than two months old, Telefilm Canada has announced $2.7 million in financing for four feature films representing a third of its 1994/95 allocation for French-track movies.

The agency will invest $900,000 in Robert Lepage’s Le Confessional, $550,000 in Charles Biname’s Eldorado Fluo, $100,000 in Miguel Littin’s Les Naufrages, and $1.2 million in Louis Saia’s Le Sphinx de la banlieue.

Le Confessional is a Cinemaginaire Canada/France/u.k. coproduction and Lepage’s feature debut. Denise Robert, Philippe Carassonne of France’s Cinea S.A. and legendary British producer David Puttnam of Enigma Films are producing.

Robert says Puttnam is a big Lepage admirer and was wild about the director’s muddy, surreal staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in London, Eng. Principal photography is slated to start June 6. Alliance Vivafilm is the distributor.

Eldorado Fluo (as in fluorescent) is a Cite-Amerique production penned by Pierre Billon and Biname, who’ll direct.

Biname (C’etait le 12 du 12 et Chili avait les blues, Blanche) is one of the hotter directorial properties on the Quebec scene. On Eldorado, he will be reunited with Blanche lead Pascale Bussieres, the peacefully reposing redhead on the cover of Playback’s April 11th issue. Bussieres recently wrapped shooting on Patricia Rozema’s When Night is Falling. Lorraine Richard is the producer, Alliance will distribute. Photography begins June 29.

Les Naufrages is a Canada/ France/Chile coproduction from producer Yvon Provost and Montreal’s Productions d’Amerique francaise. Industry veteran Marcel Paradis of Films 39 is the distributor. The film is our first coproduction with Chile, a location some say is going to give Vancouver a run for its money, mountains and coastline. It’s even being dubbed ‘Hollywood South.’

Le Sphinx de la banlieue is a Productions Tele-Action feature from producer Claudio Luca (The Boys of St. Vincent). The script is by Saia and actor Marc Messier, who will star in the story about an entrenched middle-aged suburbanite whose grip on sanity is loosened when things start to fall apart. Shooting dates have yet to be announced. C/FP Distribution (Cinepix) will distribute.

In tv, Telefilm will invest $1.5 million in a new Television Quatre Saisons teleroman, Journal d’un triplex. Christian Fournier, author of the tres long-running TVA Television Network series Chop Suey, is the writer. Gilbert Lepage and Andre Guerard are the directors and Vincent Gabriele is the producer.