Blueprint Entertainment’s kids division is developing a preschool series – dubbed ‘Sesame Street for the Soul’ – based on the award-winning Dewey Doo-it books.

Existing soundstages in Montreal and Toronto are disturbingly quiet for the summer season, but entrepreneurs in other Canadian cites are throwing caution to the wind and constructing more purpose-built studios than ever, gambling that Hollywood service shoots will return to usual levels when U.S. labor unrest subsides and money markets cool off.

Following the phenomenal box office and critical success of Juno, Jason Reitman’s career is on fire. It was just three years ago that the filmmaker burst onto the scene with the satirical hit Thank You for Smoking, and now the Canadian ex-pat has a distribution deal with Fox Searchlight for his Hard C prodco. As a producer, he recently wrapped the Vancouver shoot for Jennifer’s Body, a horror comedy penned by Diablo Cody, Juno’s Oscar-winning scribe.

Canadian independent film and TV production and development spending fell 8% to $1.41 billion in 2007, down from $1.52 billion the previous year, according to Playback’s 20th annual survey on independent production.

Mid-level players are more obsessed with quality than size. It seems they have learned valuable lessons from the rash of film and TV companies that went public in the 1990s, drawn by the allure of millions in new coin from the Toronto Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

Exit of Alliance Atlantis sends numbers down for first time since 2004, while cartoons and kiddie live action hit growth spurt

‘Quirky and dark’ story about well-endowed male escort in development for HBO, while Sci Fi eyes series joint effort with Howie Mandel