Paul Gross and his partners at Whizbang Films are getting back into politics, and plan to deliver a sequel to their 2004 thriller H2O to CBC in time for the 2007/08 season.

Scriptwriter Jefferson Lewis (Mon amie Max) says adapting Emotional Arithmetic for the big screen was very daunting. The story follows three people who are separated by the Nazis during World War Two, to be reunited some 35 years later, and comes from the novel by the late Matt Cohen, a close friend of Lewis’.

Quebec actress-cum-filmmaker Carole Laure (CQ2) is shooting her latest feature, La Capture, in Montreal until Oct. 21.

The France/Canada copro Steak is expected to wrap on Oct. 14, ending six weeks in Montreal. Directed by Quentin Dupieux (Nonfilm), the sci-fi comedy is set in 2016, when facelifts are performed on most of the population. Popular French comedy team Eric et Ramzy star as two wannabe gangsters who hope the surgery will get them into exclusive gang clubs.

Twentieth Century Fox has sent a second sci-fi sequel to B.C. and is now shooting Alien vs. Predator 2 at Vancouver Film Studios alongside its follow-up to Fantastic Four.

Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro will this month finish work on Things We Lost in the Fire, ending an eight-week stay at the Lionsgate studio in North Vancouver. The DreamWorks drama, due through Paramount sometime next year, has Berry as a young widow who befriends a chum of her late husband. Danish import Susanne Bier (After the Wedding) directs under producers Sam Mendes (Road to Perdition) and Sam Mercer (Jarhead).

Vikings – this time accompanied by space aliens – will again land in the Maritimes this month with the arrival of Outlander. The sci-fi action feature is booked for Newfoundland and Labrador and the Halifax area into the new year, with Karl Urban (Doom) leading as an alien who crash-lands on Earth during the time of the Vikings, only to be followed by a predatory monster. Don Carmody (Silent Hill) and Christopher Eberts (Lucky Number Slevin) exec produce, joined by producers Chris Roberts, Barrie Osbourne and director Howard McCain (Perfect Prey).

* Producers Lorne Michaels and John Goldwyn have wrapped their daredevil comedy Hot Rod, starring Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg, after shooting at B.C.’s The Bridge Studios for Paramount.

Director Fernand Dansereau (Doux aveux) is on the set of his latest, La Brunante (The Dusk), in Montreal until Oct. 23. The $2.3-million feature – about a woman who plans the ways in which she will say goodbye to her loved ones upon learning that she has Alzheimer’s – is produced by Jean-Roch Marcotte and Normand McKay of Totale Fiction.

Vancouver producer Chris Haddock had little time to mourn the cancellation of Da Vinci’s City Hall, the spinoff of his critically acclaimed drama Da Vinci’s Inquest, rebounding immediately with Intelligence, a new series set to debut next month on CBC.

Érik Canuel’s Bon Cop, Bad Cop has become la belle province’s first $10-million baby, surpassing 2002’s Séraphin: Un homme et son péché at the box office and, as Playback went to press, was closing in on all-time Canadian champ Porky’s, according to Motion Picture Distribution.

In a surprising turn of events, Alliance Atlantis is speaking informally with Victor Loewy about bringing the departed chair of AA’s Motion Picture Distribution back into the fold, according to a source close to the negotiations.
‘Cooler heads have prevailed,’ says the source. ‘The thinking now is ‘how do we all stay rich and keep everyone happy?”

Ken Ferguson has finally broken ground on the long-awaited Toronto megastudio, and says the first of its seven soundstages will be open for business in late 2007, with others opening early in ’08.

Montreal’s troubled World Film Festival wrapped on Sept. 4, ending its 12-day 30th edition with generally favorable reviews from industry attendees and local press, despite having gone a second year without funding from Telefilm Canada or SODEC.

Cowboy Cool – a mini program of oddball westerns including 1973’s Westworld (above) – plays at the Calgary International Film Festival, which returns for its third year Sept. 22 to Oct 1. See also www.calgaryfilm.com