It will hardly be the end of the road for writer/producer Michael Sparaga if Servitude fizzles this fall in Canadian theatres after bowing at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal last Thursday.

After all, Canadian movies remain a dice-roll on release at the local cinema.

But a strong showing for Servitude director Warren Sonoda’s ribald comedy about a group of steakhouse waiters who stage a revolt would be a victory for Telefilm Canada’s features comedy lab out of the Canadian Film Centre, where Sparaga endlessly worked and reworked the Servitude script.

“It’s a federal decree,” joked Sparaga of Telefilm Canada’s collaboration with the Just For Laughs festival to hot-house Canadian feature comedies for success at the local multiplex.

Given that Canadian talent like Mike Myers, Ivan Reitman and Jim Carrey have won over Hollywood, it makes sense for the industry to develop theatrical comedy scripts for packaging and possible production.

“I hope they like farting and barfing,” Sparaga said of unsuspecting Canadian filmgoers as Maple Pictures gets set this fall to release his workplace laugher that swims in bodily fluids.

The Toronto-based filmmaker said he’s chosen to make commercial movies in Canada, rather than Hollywood, so that means tapping Telefilm Canada coin that more often backs dark and intimate Canadian films.

“It’s political. You have to understand who and why they give you money. And they [Telefilm] believe Canadians should be making more comedy,” Sparaga explained.

There are lots of small touches at work to shoot and market Servitude that makes this Canadian film more than a Hail Mary pass as Telefilm Canada looks to challenge Hollywood’s dominance of the comedy genre at the local multiplex.

Ivan Reitman and fellow Hollywood heavyweights Etan Cohen and Donald Petrie came north to help Sparaga and Sonoda get their Servitude script into shape for packaging and production in November 2010.

In all, the film’s script went through 20 rewrites in eight months as Sparaga and his mentors put up the white board and endlessly broke down the film’s characters and narrative.

“The auteur approach to film can’t work with comedy. You can’t be precious with the script, working with one story editor,” Sparaga explained.

The Servitude cast, including Dave Foley, Margot Kidder and Enrico Colantoni, is calculated to interest Canadians with recognizable stars, in addition to co-leads like Joe Dinicol, John Bregar and Aaron Ashmore.

And the Servitude trailer was produced by Los Angeles-based Seismic Productions, which also cut the trailers for Bad Teacher, The Kids Are Alright and What’s Your Number?.

Sparaga said he cold-called Seismic and pitched Servitude as part of a Canadian theatrical comedy incubator backed by veteran comedy producers like Reitman, Jimmy Miller, Debbie Liebling and Kirsten Smith.

It worked: five Seismic staff had a hand in making the Servitude trailer.

And while the trailer focuses on Stein, Dinicol and the other seven major Servitude cast members get at least one chance to shine before Canadians with their own movie posters, which are now getting a staggered release into the market.

The Servitude producers also bypassed the Toronto International Film Festival – whose programmers asked to screen Servitude – to debut the picture at Just For Laughs.

No disrespect to Toronto, but Sparaga isn’t looking to confuse Canadians by placing TIFF laurel leaves on the Servitude movie poster. Here Sparaga wants Canadians to think American Pie as they spot Servitude in the movie listings.

Cue the audience-repelling bathroom humour.

In one scene, Joe Dinicol, who plays Josh Stein, unleashes a lava rush of vomit directly into Dave Foley’s mouth.

Sparaga and Sonoda spared no detail as they concocted a pea soup combination that Dinicol coughed up and hurled – even adding sound effects in post, as well as residual spray to more dramatically spread the vomit.

For all its gross-out humour, however, Sparaga is serious about Servitude.

After long working as a Keg restaurant waiter who made a living stacking loonies and toonies in a jar, Sparaga treats movie-making as a business.

His aim was also to fill Servitude with big and broad comedy to hedge against the Canadian film being a one-weekend wonder, with no legs to squeeze out a profit for its backers.

And that means giving Canadians a reason to love Servitude and to make it their own.

“This is the audience’s film. It feels the way comedy should feel,” Sparaga said.