An end to the U.S. writers strike has touched off a production frenzy.

The question is, will the restart of Hollywood’s vast machinery of movie and TV production benefit Canada?

On the TV side, the Hollywood studios are already ramping up production on popular series to provide fodder for the May sweeps. That spells relief for Vancouver, where local production crews and talent were furloughed during the strike.

‘It’s good news for us. The TV series here that were on hiatus, or shut down as a result of the strike, will now start up again,’ says Peter Leitch, president of the North Shore and Mammoth studios.

He forecasts U.S. TV series will be up and running in six to eight weeks, with ABC Family’s Kyle XY and USA Network’s Psych bound for the North Shore facility.

Other TV series set to restart in Vancouver, after leaving their sets intact through the WGA strike, include Smallville and Men in Trees.

By May, Canadian studio operators and unions and guilds should have more clarity on which U.S. series that shoot in Canada will be renewed for next season, and which will get the axe.

On the movie side, the production potential for Canada is less hopeful, given long lead times required for big-budget Hollywood shoots. What’s more, the calendar is counting down to June 30, when the current contract between Hollywood producers and the Screen Actors Guild expires.

‘You’re probably beyond the ‘ramp-up’ period to confirm talent and hire production staff’ for big-budget shoots, says Ken Ferguson, president of Toronto Films Studios, because of the upcoming SAG negotiations.

Formal talks between bargainers for SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have yet to begin. But already SAG officials appear willing to conduct informal sidebar talks with the studio chiefs like those that preceded the recent deals for the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America.

At the same time, any suggestion that the SAG negotiations will be smooth, given the same new media issues that plagued the WGA and DGC talks, are off-mark.

‘[SAG officials] aren’t interested in pattern bargaining,’ says Stephen Waddell, executive director of ACTRA.

Ferguson insists some studios might do side deals with SAG to allow them to complete movie shoots that offer much-needed work for Hollywood actors.

Such deals may well be crucial for big-budget movie shoots whose need for sufficient prep and production schedules could push them beyond the June 30 deadline. Examples of movies that could be on the bubble include Fox’s Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the Smithsonian, which currently occupies soundstages at the Mammoth Studio. That shoot is to start production in April and carry on through the summer.

More midsize movie shoots in Vancouver, including the Fox Atomic comedy-horror Jennifer’s Body, which stars Megan Fox, will start shooting in March and will likely wrap before June.

Hans Fraiken, the film commissioner for the Québec Film and Television Council, says Montreal is similarly likely to do better with midsize Hollywood shoots in the run-up to the SAG talks.

He argues movie shoots that prep in March and shoot in April and May will easily wrap before June 30.

Two examples of such shoots currently in Montreal include the John Cusack-starrer The Factory, from Joel Silver’s Dark Castle Productions, and Orphan, which stars Peter Sarsgaard and is executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio.