• CBC has signed a three-year deal to air Toronto Raptors games – putting Canada’s only NBA team back on network television for the first time in four years. The deal with owner Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment includes up to 10 regular season games in the coming season, and up to 20 each in the 2008/09 and 2009/10 seasons. The Raptors also have deals in place with TSN, The Score and Rogers Sportsnet for 2007/08. Games also run on the team-owned Raptors NBA TV digichannel.

The story ‘Raymont on the Border’ in the Aug. 6 issue reported that The Border was shelved by CBC after the Sept. 11 attacks. In fact, the project was pitched after 9/11 and remained in the works throughout.

A key reason Discovery Channel is so happy with the online aspect of its $20-million Mars mega-project is that it had Toronto interactive firm QuickPlay Media involved from first discussions through to final script.

The opening of Guns – the new, two-part miniseries from director David ‘Sudz’ Sutherland – will seem familiar to viewers in Toronto when a six-year-old girl is gunned down on Yonge Street.

Muse Productions has got horror on the mind this summer, with two made-for-TV movies. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, based on the classic by Robert Louis Stevenson, wrapped on Aug. 15. Directed by Paolo Barzman (Emotional Arithmetic), the $5-million project stars Dougray Scott (Desperate Housewives), as both Hyde and Jekyll, and Tom Skerritt (Picket Fences). The script was written by Paul Margolis (Sirens). It will air in the U.S. on ION Networks.

Global Television has announced plans to make a Canadian version of the family game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, and will begin taping five episodes in Toronto in October, following a deal with Mark Burnett Productions.

ZOS: Zone of Separation, the new drama produced by Whizbang Films (Men with Brooms), has returned from its 12-day stint in Bosnia to continue filming in Toronto and southern Ontario.

Incendo Productions is shooting Mistaken, an MOW for Lifetime and others, in Montreal. Richard Roy (Thrill of the Kill) directs Lana Parrilla (24) and James Thomas (Flirting with Danger) through the thriller story about identity theft. Stephen Greenberg of Incendo exec produces with Anne Carlucci and Justin Bodle of U.K.-based Power. Incendo Media will distribute in North America, while Power handles the international. Mistaken will air on The Movie Network, Movie Central, Super Écran and Lifetime.

Rainn Wilson (The Office) and Christina Applegate (Employee of the Month) have wrapped The Rocker, ending a two-month stay at Toronto Film Studios under director Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty). The comedy, due next year through Fox Atomic, stars Wilson as a failed drummer (‘a modern-day Pete Best,’ says Variety) who gets a second chance at the big time.

Clement Virgo is closing in on his next picture and hopes to shoot the thriller The Collectors next spring, working from a script by Annmarie Morais (Step) about crime scene photographers in London. Damon D’Oliveira of Conquering Lion Productions says the project, a potential copro with the U.K., is looking to shoot on a budget of roughly $10 million, adding that the ‘very commercial’ film will mark something of a departure for Virgo, who most recently helmed Poor Boy’s Game and Lie with Me. Details are expected to take shape in September.

Watching Pierre Karl Péladeau over the past year, one could easily get the impression that he wants to rule the world, or at the very least, the entire Canadian media industry.