According to principal Steve Hoban, lack of commercial production work has brought down his Toronto prodco 49th Parallel (Nothing, Ginger Snaps 2), which is slowly closing its doors, ending its brief but once-promising run at long-form production and distribution.

The company will wind down over the next year or two, he says, because cofounder Philip Mellows needs more time to run his own business, the troubled ad house Play Media.

49th was founded in 2001 by Hoban, Mellows and distribution vet Noah Segal, and quickly attached itself to a handful of hot titles, including Vincenzo Natali's much-anticipated Nothing, and the sequels to Ginger Snaps. Ginger Snaps 2 fared well in theaters in January, but number three and Nothing have not yet been released. Nothing is expected to come out sometime this summer via Odeon Films, but Seville Pictures has not set a date for the final Ginger film, which shot in Alberta last year.

Hoban produced the original Ginger through his Copper Heart Entertainment, which still holds the rights to the teen horror franchise.

Copper Heart is also pursuing several new film and TV projects. Hoban is in the final stages of developing the animated feature Uberman with Natali. He is also attached, with Segal, to exec produce a remake of the schlock horror classic Black Christmas along with Bob Clark, director of the 1974 original.

Copper Heart is also looking for a director to shoot the action horror The Last Hunt, a copro with the U.K.'s Spice Factory, sometime this fall and has writer Ian MacDonald at work on an untitled MOW about Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet clerk who defected to Canada in the 1950s. Brett Sullivan (Ginger Snaps 2) will direct.