Hallmark up for three summer shoots

Vancouver: Former Sextant Entertainment principal Matthew O'Connor is keeping his long-standing Hallmark Entertainment relationship alive with the Hallmark MOW The Colt and the miniseries Earthsea, both in production this spring and summer.

The Colt is a western for NBC. Production wraps almost four weeks of camera work May 8, with editor Yelena Lanskaya promoted to director.

Earthsea, based on the Ursula K. Le Guin fantasy novels, goes into production May 17 until Aug. 6. Isabella Rossellini stars and Robert Lieberman (Jake 2.0) directs the production, set for a December debut on Sci Fi Channel in the U.S. Matthew O'Connor's brother Michael O'Connor is the coproducer.

Hallmark, meanwhile, is also producing the TV movie Five People You Meet in Heaven in Vancouver June 3 to Aug. 3.

Howard Ellis and Lisa Towers (Harvey) will oversee the production based on the Mitch Albom novel about an elderly maintenance man in heaven. Lloyd Kramer (The Mary Kay Letourneau Story) directs. John Goodman (Monsters, Inc.), Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream) and Jeff Daniels (The Goodbye Girl) star. Ian Edwards

Tom & Jerry

Toronto: Jerry Ciccoritti (Trudeau, Lives of the Saints) shot a spur-of-the-moment project last month, helming the TV movie Blood for Toronto's Spank Films and its sister outfit Charlotte Bernard Entertainment. The high-def pic, based on the play by Tom Walmsley, stars Jacob Tierney (The Many Trials of One Jane Doe) and Emily Hampshire (A Problem with Fear) as a brother and sister caught up in drugs and prostitution.

Ciccoritti and Walmsley know each other from 1993 when Ciccoritti filmed an adaptation of the latter's novel Paris, France.

Blood shot in one week for a little over $100,000 in studio and on location around Toronto, plus some second unit work in Montreal, say producers Joel Awerbuck and Anna Gerb. It is set to air on CBC and The Movie Network. Sean Davidson