Hathaway
Wiest
If you like horned mammals and you’re a fan of the CBC comedy Little Mosque On The Prairie, you might have been one of the lucky Vancouverites to meet series stars Zaib Shaikh and Manoj Sood yesterday morning at the Blenz Coffee on the corner of Robson and Burrard. The two were on hand to sign autographs for passersby, who also had the opportunity to taste Arabic coffee and Middle Eastern desserts. In keeping with the humour of the series, goats were on hand to celebrate the show’s tremendous success.
Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) and Dianne Wiest (The Horse Whisperer) dined together at CinCin last Saturday. Both are in town shooting the Brightlight Pictures production, Passengers, which recently completed filming plane crash scenes at Jericho beach.
Word last week that a re-imagined pilot for The Bionic Woman will indeed shoot in Vancouver later this year. Breakdown lists have already been circulated to local casting agents for the production, which will be produced by David Eick, Bruno Heller and Laeta Kalogridis for NBC Universal Television. In the story, Jamie Sommers awakens to find that she has been surgically transformed into a super-human bionic woman who has been hard-wired for combat. At first resistant of her bionic implants, she soon realizes that she must accept the inevitable and use her skills for the good of humanity, but only after battling a bionic rival that has targeted both her and her loved ones. The original series, which starred Lindsay Wagoner, was a spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man.
Finally, almost two months ago we reported on the ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) imbroglio that has paralyzed the film and television industry in much of Canada, most particularly Ontario. After a promising handshake agreement between Canadian actors and producers to end the ACTRA strike last Friday, Hollywood studio heads balked at the deal, leaving both CFTPA (Canadian Film & Television Production Association) and ACTRA representatives to hammer out another deal with respect to how made-for-new media product residuals (i.e. webisodes) are paid out by the major studios. Without an agreement on this issue, the likelihood of finalizing the new IPA (Independent Production Agreement) deal this week is called into question — more bad news for the Toronto film industry.
Robert Falconer is a Senior Editor at HollywoodNorthReport.com.
