UPDATED June 30, 2013
From famine to feast. B.C.’s film and TV production industry is bouncing back from a dismal start to the new year. But it could prove a temporary reprieve fueled by just four weeks of American TV pilot productions. The B.C. government still needs to move provincial tax incentives closer to Ontario and Quebec’s.
But for now, it’s good to see the Vancouver production list looking healthier. Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla reboot is getting underway finally after being pushed back while legal issues were resolved. Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars along with Elizabeth Olsen and Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston from a script by The Walking Dead’s Frank Darabont. [Update: Word and Pictures, starring Clive Owen as a private school English teacher and Juliette Binoche as an art teacher who complicate their lives with romance, starts shooting next month too. As does Hector and the Search for Happiness starring Simon Pegg as a psychiatrist searching the world for the secret to happiness. And the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise starring Andy Serkis as Caesar will return to Vancouver in April to film about a quarter of its sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The bulk of the Apes sequel’s production will be done somewhere cheaper — Louisiana.]
[Update: Feature film Robocop will do reshoots this May in Vancouver instead of Toronto, to accomodate star Joel Kinnaman who is committed to filming season three of The Killing here.]
- Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman directing series finale in Vancouver
[Eight American TV pilots and one short presentation] are confirmed to film in Vancouver next month, spread out among all five American broadcast networks. Our city remains on #TeamJJ (an inside-joke Twitter hashtag for JJ.Abrams projects and players) with a new FOX pilot [Almost Human starring Star Trek’s Karl Urban and Michael Ealy] filming here next month. Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman (above) plans to bring his script about Los Angeles police officers paired with androids to life with his Vancouver Fringe crew.[ [Also confirmed] is the CBS pilot Intelligence starring #TeamJJ actor Josh Holloway of Lost as US Cyber Command officer who has a microchip implanted in his brain. Another successful showrunner, Hart Hanson of Bones, is bringing his CBS pilot Backstrom to Vancouver, based on the books of a real-life Swedish criminologist [and starring Rainn Wilson]. And Bravo pilot Rita will star Anna Gunn as a private school teacher. You know what that means? A potential reunion of Breaking Bad TV couple Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn in Vancouver.
Feature Films (Dates are subject to change)
March 18th to June 29th – Godzilla starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston and Elizabeth Olsen with a script by The Walking Dead’s Frank Darabont.WRAPPED
March 18th to May 5th – Words and Pictures starring Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche. as teachers in a private school who become involved. WRAPPED
March 30th to April 20th – Hector and the Search for Happiness starring Simon Pegg as Hector, a psychiatrist searching the world to find the secret of happiness WRAPPED
April 2nd to May 3rd? – Dawn of the Planet of the Apes starring Andy Serkis as Caesar, Jason Clarke (Zero Dead Thirty), Keri Russell, Gary Oldman and Kodi Smit McPhee is set 15 years later WRAPPED
May 2nd to 17th – Robocop Reshoots to be done in Vancouver instead of Toronto to accomodate star Joel Kinnaman filming season three of The Killing here. WRAPPED
TV Pilots (Dates are subject to change)
March 13th to April 3rd – Almost Human (FOX) Fringe showrunner Joel Wyman’s pilot about Los Angeles police officers paired with androids starring Star Trek’s Karl Urban as human police officer and Michael Ealy as his android partner. Minka Kelly is a cop with strong morals. Lili Taylor is the police captain. WRAPPED.
March 14th to April 4th – The 100 (The CW) 100 juvenile delinquents in space sent back to Earth after nuclear war to test whether it’s habitable starring Eliza Taylor, Thomas McDonell plus Bob Morley, Eli Goree, Isaiah Washington, and Henry Ian Cusick (Lost) Constructed set in Langley. WRAPPED.
March 15th to April 3rd – Intelligence (CBS) starring Lost’s Josh Holloway as US Cyber Command officer who has a microchip implanted in his brain. And Marg Helgenberger and Meghan Ory. WRAPPED.
March 17th to March 29th – Victor (NBC) – John Stamos and Lorenza Izzo star in House-style drama about a high-powered divorce attorney from White Collar producers. WRAPPED.
March 19th to April 4th – Big Thunder (ABC) based on popular western Disney attraction Big Thunder Mountain this drama is about a 19th Century doctor (Ed MacLiam) and his family who move from New York to a frontier mining town. Expected to film pilot in Maple Ridge on Supernatural’s Bordertown set and in Squamish. WRAPPED.
March 20th t0 April 4th – Blink (The CW). Madeline Carroll cast as teen whose Dad is in a coma after a car accident. WRAPPED.
March 26th to April 12th – Backstrom (CBS). Bones creator Hart Hanson’s pilot based on the books of a real-life Swedish criminologist. Rainn Wilson (The Office) stars, along with Mamie Gummer, Dennis Haysbert (24/The Unit) and Kristoffer Polaha. WRAPPED.
April 8th to 12th – Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (ABC). Short presentation for potential Once Upon a Time spinoff set in Wonderland with Sophie Lowe as Alice, Peter Gadiot as Cyrus, Michael Socha as the Knave of Hearts, Emma Rigby as the Red Queen and John Lithgow as the voice of the White Rabbit. WRAPPED.
April 10th to 25th – Rita (Bravo). Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn stars in an adaption of a Danish series about a private school teacher who struggles to raise her own three children. WRAPPED.
ONGOING TV SERIES (Dates are subject to change)
July 16th, 2012 to April 5th, 2013 – Once Upon a Time (ABC) – season two. WRAPPED.
July 9th, 2012 to April 19th, 2013 – Supernatural (The CW) – season eight WRAPPED
July 18th, 2012 to April 21st, 2013 – Arrow (The CW) – season one WRAPPED
January 23rd to June 6th, 2013 – Continuum (Showcase/Syfy) – season two WRAPPED
February 20th to March 22nd 2013 – Mr. Young (YTV/Disney XD) – season three. WRAPPED.
February 25th to June 25th, 2013 – The Killing (AMC) – season three with Peter Sarsgaard cast as death-row inmate along with leads Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman. WRAPPED
March 25th to July 23rd, 2013 – Cedar Cove: The Series (Hallmark) – season one with Andie MacDowell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) as Judge Olivia Lockhart of the bestselling Debbie Macomber book series. WRAPPED.
April 3rd to July 2nd, 2013 – King & Maxwell (TNT) – season one with Jon Tenney (The Closer) and Rebecca Romijn (Mystique on The X Men) as former secret service agents turned private investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell from the David Baldacci books. WRAPPED.
May 2nd to August 23rd – Psych (USA Network) – season eight with James Roday, Dule Hill, Maggie Lawson, Timothy Omundson, Corbin Bernsen & Kirsten Nelson. 10 episodes in total. WRAPPED.