M. Michelle Nadon is managing director of MediaINTELLIGENCE, which offers full-service training and recruitment for the Canadian media and culture employment markets. Michael Taylor is project manager for Rogers Promotions.

Playback readers didn’t think The Rocket would score too big outside of Quebec. In response to an online poll question asking readers what kind of box office they expected for the Maurice Richard biopic in English Canada, 36% said they thought it would make less than $1 million, while 24% chose $2 million-plus, 23% voted for $1 million-plus, and 17% thought $4 million-plus.

Shaftesbury Films will see its first project with Kelly Rowan go to air this month, just as a second starts shooting in rural Ontario. The MOW Eight Days to Live, which Rowan (The O.C., The Man Who Saved Christmas) exec produced with the Toronto prodco, is set to air May 28 on CTV and will be followed by In God’s Country, a TV movie about Mormon polygamy.

The creators of 6Teen have reteamed on a new cartoon series and hope to see Total Drama Island on Teletoon sometime in 2007. The 26 x 30 Flash-animated series recently got the green light from the cable channel and is looking to start storyboarding by later this month, animating by late summer.

Breakthrough Films & Television has wrapped its MOW The Wives He Forgot after a three-week shoot in Toronto with stars Molly Ringwald and Mark Humphrey (Cruel but Necessary). The former teen idol stars as a lawyer who falls for a mysterious amnesia patient, Humphrey, who is put on trial for bigamy when his multiple wives come looking for him. Mario Azzopardi (Savage Messiah) directs under exec producers Ira Levy and Peter Williamson and producer Paula Smith.

* The Warner Bros.-backed horror feature Sanctum has stalled shortly after it was to get underway at Cinespace Studios in Toronto, and is now in turnaround, hoping to be picked up by another studio.

Calgary: Samuel L. Jackson, Alan Alda and Josh Hartnett (Sin City) are headed to Calgary to star in the Yari Film Group/Phoenix Pictures effort Resurrecting the Champ, according to Variety. The film, scheduled to begin shooting in mid-June, is based on a series of articles by Los Angeles Times reporter J.R. Moehringer, who befriended a homeless man claiming to be a former boxing champion. Champ will be directed by Rod Lurie (Commander in Chief, The Contender) and produced by Bob Yuri, Marc Frydman (The Contender), and the Phoenix trio of Arnold Messer, Brad Fischer and Mike Medavoy.

Father Stan Fortuna raps, plays jazz guitar and travels the world – bringing a heavily Bronx-accented message of peace, self-respect and spirituality to kids as far afield as Portugal, Uganda and the Caribbean.

Two new sitcoms are garnering solid ratings, with hopes running high about their futures.

For Derek Elliott, the move made perfect sense. Since 1995, the president and CEO of the Toronto-based Elliott Management Group (EMI) has been managing the Sun Village Resort & Spa in the Dominican Republic, a resort he launched that’s popular with wealthy tourists.

Making up a movie as you go along – what could possibly go wrong? Surprisingly little, according to director Matt Austin, who shot his first feature, Dirt, over three days in April with just a vague script and a cast of improv actors.

Saskatoon: Thomega Entertainment has teamed with Regina-based production heavyweight Minds Eye Pictures to develop the new feature In Seclusion, a psychological thriller about a family put in jeopardy when they mistakenly become involved in an FBI investigation.