





| by: | May 20, 1996 |
Pebblehut Productions has a full slate of productions for this spring and summer.
Meryl Streep will be in Toronto in early September to star in an mow, First Do No Harm. The production, which has Michael Jaffe as exec producer and Jim Abrahams directing, was slated to begin production in June, but was delayed due to a conflict in Streep's schedule.
Pebblehut is not divulging any other details about the production, and says Streep is making a rare tv movie appearance, "because this is a special case."
Pebblehut is also getting ready to shoot Undue Influence, a miniseries for cbs with Bruce Pittman directing and Christine Sacani producing. Filming is set to start June 17.
Currently in production, Pebblehut has Dogmatic, a tv movie for abc, with director Neill Fearnley and producer Susan Murdoch, and Talk to Me, another tv movie, with director Graeme Campbell and producer Marilyn Stonehouse.
Fanning fires
You know you're not dealing with an average filmmaker wannabe when you phone his voice mail and are blasted with a male voice doing a Carly Simon impersonation, complete with musical backup: "You're so vain, you prob'ly think this message is for you. You're so vain, you prob'ly think this message is for you, don't you, don't you?"
When scriptwriter Roger King calls back, speaking now rather than singing, he tells me about his international fan club with l.a.-based partner Zach Tate. He admits they haven't made a dent into the Hollywood scene or sold a word of their scripts. However, the fan club they launched two years ago is a thriving success. But isn't launching a fan club for your as yet-to-be-extraordinary self rather unusual? Maybe even rather vain?
"We're the first people who have done nothing and have our own fan club," boasts Toronto-based King, 27. "It's never too early for publicity. Our attitude is don't take yourself too seriously and don't take not taking yourself too seriously too seriously."
The pair has written two scripts, neither of which have received any takers so far. A couple of years ago, they decided to launch the newsletter that would chart their successes and failures as they tried to make inroads into Tinseltown.
"We have fans from all over the world who read our newsletter and write us letters now," says King. The newsletter chronicles the scriptwriters' efforts to sell their scripts and even includes rejection letters they've received.
"When you read about people who are successful in show business, there's always this brief reference to the lean years. We wanted to record what it's really like."
King, who does voice work (besides on his voice mail) to keep the wolves from the door, says their company, Foztark (Friends of Zach Tate and Roger King) Films, is currently flogging Raves, a comedy about a disgruntled movie director who forces film critics onto an airplane and won't land the aircraft until they all give him good reviews. The duo have no takers so far for the script, but King is hopeful they'll have a buyer by the fall.


