Vancouver: Not only does Vancouver get to host the action picture Ecks vs. Sever because of international security concerns, but now we get to play ourselves.
The mid-range-budget picture – starring Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas as rogue agents out to get each other – was originally set in Bangkok. But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the production was moved back to North America to be closer to Los Angeles.
Directed by Kaos, a Thai making his Hollywood debut, the film is being shot with wide angles and old-fashioned physical effects – meaning that the location is integral to the story and computer graphics will not be used to enhance, for instance, the explosions.

Vancouver: Overall attendance at NATPE this month in Las Vegas is down about 40% from last year, but Canada’s participation has more than doubled.
According to Beth Braen, senior VP of marketing for the trade show, running Jan. 21-24, exhibiting companies are down to 535 from 800 last year and overall attendance will be about 12,000 compared to 20,000 a year ago.
The effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the consolidation of the television industry have contributed to the lower participation, she explains. Braen insists, however, that while NATPE’s long-term viability has been questioned in the media and former exhibitors are organizing a concurrent event at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, the 39-year-old market is not going away.

Vancouver: On Jan. 11, California’s Governor Gray Davis injected new life into the ongoing runaway production controversy by floating a proposal for a new labor-based tax incentive for lower-budget California productions. At the same time, the Film and Television Action Committee, which has lobbied against runaway productions, temporarily withdrew its petition filed late last year calling for countervailing duties on U.S. shows shot in Canada with Canadian tax credits.

Vancouver: Mystery continues to shroud the paid suspension of the B.C. Film Commission’s director and marketing manager while the government ministry investigating their ‘managerial procedures’ is weeks from clearing the air.

Vancouver: The USA Network has picked up a full season of 20 hour-long episodes of Lions Gate Television’s The Dead Zone. Vancouver’s Crescent Entertainment will oversee production.
The series, based on the Stephen King novel, will debut in June and will be distributed in North America by Lions Gate and internationally by Paramount.
Anthony Michael Hall, who starred in the two-hour pilot shot in Vancouver in 2001, will carry on with the series about a man who emerges from a long coma with psychic abilities. Nicole De Boer, Chris Bruno and John Adams costar in the series that promises a mix of action, romance, the paranormal and the quest for justice.

Vancouver: The Canada Feature Film Fund will undergo an overhaul in its sophomore year now that Telefilm Canada has accepted a handful of recommendations from a 24-member advisory group. But the details will have to wait until the new guidelines are announced early this year.

Vancouver: The animation landscape has its share of mutants – you know, the unsuspecting Joe transformed into something more powerful by forces known or unknown.

Vancouver: The Canadian service production industry expects the U.S. Commerce Department to dismiss a petition asking for countervailing duties on U.S.-based runaway production by Dec. 24.
‘It’s more rhetoric than reality,’ says Tom Adair, executive director of the BC Council of Film Unions, referring to the high-profile campaign by the L.A.-based Film and Television Action Committee objecting to Canada’s tax-incentive programs. ‘The countervailing duty is not strongly supported [in the U.S.].’
The whole issue, he adds, is overblown. ‘The nature of the business and the money is mobile,’ says Adair. ‘In Vancouver, we took the dregs of production – syndicated television and cable, stuff the L.A. industry wouldn’t accommodate. Who knew it would be the fastest growing segment of the industry today?’

Vancouver: For Canada’s Genie Awards, like any subjective contest, picking the best of the year’s films is a controversial act. But the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television that runs the awards gala remains adamantly apolitical.

Vancouver: The godfather of the Vancouver independent film scene is lending his expertise to local producers who self-distribute.
Leonard Schein, founder of the Vancouver International Film Festival, finished his three-year management contract as president and CEO of Alliance Atlantis Cinemas in September. (He sold his Festival Cinemas, including the Fifth Avenue in Vancouver, to Alliance Atlantis in 1998.) Since then he has been acting as a consultant for Anagram Pictures’ feature Mile Zero, about a father who kidnaps his son.
‘Most producers don’t have a clue how to distribute,’ says Schein, operating under the name Starr Schein Enterprises.

Vancouver: In a significant shift in position, the minister of Canadian heritage has put the issue of foreign ownership of Canadian broadcasters up for debate – albeit with a strong warning.
Sheila Copps, testifying Nov. 8 in Ottawa as the first witness in the 18-month review of the Broadcasting Act by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, said: ‘I think the intent of the foreign ownership requirements is to ensure that there is a diversity of voices. If there is another way of achieving those objectives, I don’t think we should preordain that review, but I think [the standing committee] should be reviewing that.’
To date, she has opposed any initiatives that relax foreign ownership restrictions.

Vancouver: B.C.’s new government, awash in cost-cutting initiatives, has challenged the domestic film and television production community to grow to $2 billion by 2004 from $1.2 billion last year.