Deal with it

Vancouver: West Coast producer Harvey Kahn, who has his own financing pool through his California-based Front Street Films fund, will helm The Deal, which wraps nearly five weeks of production in Vancouver May 14.

The feature, a $3-million to $5-million John Grisham-esque romance thriller set against Wall Street and the oil industry, stars Christian Slater (Pursued), Selma Blair (Hellboy), Robert Loggia (The Sopranos), Colm Feore (Trudeau) and Angie Harmon (Law & Order). U.K.-based Myriad Pictures has acquired the international rights.

Ruth Epstein, a former investment banker, wrote the script and acts as executive producer.

She also exec produced the $4-million feature We Don't Live Here Anymore, which Kahn produced in Vancouver late last year.

The film stars Naomi Watts (Mulholland Dr.), Peter Krause (Six Feet Under), Mark Ruffalo (My Life Without Me) and Laura Dern (Wild at Heart) and sold to distributor Warner Independent Pictures for a reported US$2 million after a successful debut at Sundance in January. Ian Edwards

Chaos at Chaos

Vancouver: Chaos, the Wesley Snipes action thriller, continues to live up to its name. Nearly two weeks after the Franchise Pictures feature went offline because of an apparent funding crisis (crew had not been paid), the film went back to work April 12. The pic had been in production for about a week before it went down. Previously, the Canada/U.K. coproduction had been caught in the tax-shelter clampdown in the U.K. and had to refinance.

Production, with costar Ryan Phillippe, is on location in Vancouver and should wrap May 13. Ian Edwards

Walk the walk

Toronto: Black Walk Productions' Mihkel Harilaid is getting a lot of phone calls these days for his feature Ham & Cheese ever since a very positive review in Variety encouraged distribs to snatch up the "must-see... potential cult classic."

"It's hard to imagine getting a better review," says Harilaid, who exec produced the Toronto-shot mockumentary with director Warren Sonoda in 2002. The pic played the Victoria Film Festival and Cinequest in San Jose, CA to strong reviews, and Harilaid says several large outfits in the U.S. and U.K. have asked for screeners since the Variety piece ran in March. He's optimistic the pic will be picked up.

Ham & Cheese is buoyed by considerable star power, counting local boys Scott Thompson and Dave Foley among the supporting cast and The Daily Show's Samantha Bee in with principals Mike Beaver and Jason Jones, her husband. Jennifer Baxter and Boyd Banks also star.

Jones and Beaver play two incompetent actors struggling to make it big in Hollywood North. The pic shot for $150,000 on private money, with a little help from ACTRA Toronto's TIP program.

Harilaid hopes the good luck will rub off on Black Walk's other mostly unseen titles. Phil the Alien, a no-budget comedy with John Kapelos and Graham Greene, has been looking for a distributor since shooting here last fall, and the company will later this year shoot the horror spoof Camp Killers, again starring Jones and Beaver.

Black Walk started out making music videos in the early '90s, but is now aiming to make feature films. Sean Davidson