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.

HALIFAX: The Trailer Park Boys’ reign as the kings of Canadian TV comedy seems to have come to an end, with no eighth season of the successful Showcase cable TV series planned.

Sci Fi Channel is sending another project north, and will shoot the backdoor pilot for its Warehouse 13 next month at Toronto Film Studios. The two-hour mini, to be directed by journeyman Jace Alexander, is about a pair of U.S. government agents, an as-yet uncast man and woman, who are put in charge of a top-secret storehouse of supernatural artifacts – something like that place at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the Smithsonian starts work in Vancouver next month, with Ben Stiller reprising his 2006 role as a put-upon night watchman for Twentieth Century Fox and director/producer Shawn Levy. Earlier this year, the project was thought to be in danger of folding because of the Writers Guild of America strike. Now, it is among the many U.S. titles that have reportedly been rushed into production in case of a summertime walkout by the Screen Actors Guild. Shooting will also take place at the actual Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

Blueprint Entertainment has two new series – an edgy comedy and a sci-fi drama – in development with American cable outlets.

Breakthrough Films and Television was in Malta last month, sending World War Two flying ace Ian MacLennan back for both a hero’s welcome and shooting of its four-part doc Uncovering the Battlefield. The Canadian pilot flew for the RAF during the war, and shot down several enemy aircraft over the tiny Mediterranean nation in 1942.

A team of rookie filmmakers who have known each other since high school have wrapped the Hamilton shoot of You Might as Well Live, sending the comedy into post with plans to submit to the Toronto International Film Festival.

Kirk Shaw likes the view from the top. His Vancouver-based Insight Film Studios has now scaled the terrain of independent production in Canada and, after nearly 20 years in business, can finally stake claim as the country’s largest prodco. Its film and TV budgets surpassed $178 million in 2007.