As its principals battle in an Ontario court for control of the company, Shaftesbury Films is holding talks with a number of foreign financial investors about a future partnership. These developments come just as the Toronto prodco is ramping up its film and TV slate.

The prospect of a prolonged WGA strike killing the U.S. network TV pilot season is sending shudders throughout the Canadian production sector, as work continues to slow in service-heavy centers such as Toronto and Vancouver.

Toronto filmmakers David Weaver, Sudz Sutherland, Aaron Woodley and Sook-Yin Lee are putting the finishing touches on their ensemble feature Toronto Stories, for distributor Christal Films, and have set their sights on the Toronto International Film Festival to launch the project.

Toronto Film Studios is hosting the two-hour pilot for Fringe, putting up the big-budget effort from J.J. Abrams until March. The supernatural series for Fox arrives with a reported budget of US$10 million, exec produced by Abrams (Lost) with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, his cohorts in the new Star Trek movie, plus Bryan Burk (Cloverfield) and Alex Graves (The West Wing). Graves will also direct.

An MOW starring Kelly Preston has begun shooting in Halifax and Windsor, NS. An adaptation of the Jodi Picoult novel The Tenth Circle, the picture of the same name went to camera on Jan. 12 for a 19-day shoot.

Twentieth Century Fox and director John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines) are booked at Toronto Film Studios through May to shoot Max Payne, a redo of the action-heavy video game. Mark Wahlberg has signed on for the title role, playing a DEA agent out to avenge the murder of his wife and child. Fred Baron exec produces with Tom Karnowski, Julie Yorn and Scott Faye.

Canwest has changed its mind about Producing Emily, though only slightly. The series from Breakthrough Animation, about the harried producer of a daytime talk show, has been retitled and shifted from E! to TVtropolis. It’s now called Producing Parker, but is otherwise unchanged, according to a Breakthrough spokesperson.

Decode Entertainment has landed distribution rights for the new preschool series Animal Mechanicals, from creator Jeff Rosen (Poko) and DHX Media, its sister company under Halifax Film.

ALBERTA