Bell Media recently made the announcement that they currently have 29 drama projects in development – this comes just days after receiving word that they are up for 83 Canadian Screen Awards nominations for original dramas.
Associated with the projects are a long list of established writers and producers including Ilana Frank (“Saving Hope,” “Rookie Blue”), Paul Haggis (“Crash”), Bill Mustos and Anne Marie La Traverse (“Flashpoint”), Salvatore Stabile (“Revenge”), Katie Ford (“Miss Congeniality,” “Desperate Housewives”), Steve Blackman (“Private Practice,” “Bones”), Robert. C Cooper (“Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis), and Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern (“Flashpoint”). Once again, Bell Media has engaged some of the most respected production companies in the country, including eOne, Shaftesbury, Omnifilm Entertainment, Thunderbird Films, LARK Productions, Darius Films, Don Carmody Productions, Prospero Pictures, Sienna Films, and Whizbang Films.
“We’re proud to be in a position to work with some of the best and most seasoned creative talent in the business, respected not only in Canada but all over the world,” said Corrie Coe, Senior Vice-President of Independent Production at Bell Media, in a press release. “We look forward to continuing to work with them to develop these extraordinary projects, and we are excited to add even more to our development slate in the spring.”
The diverse list of projects includes those from Canadian authors Giles Blunt and Robert Rotenberg; several short-order series including one about a cop who uncovers the truth behind the murders of nine Native women in a small northern Canadian town; an episodic thriller set in a post-privacy world where deep-cover agents deal with the consequences of today’s corporate decisions; a supernatural drama about clever young recruits who find themselves face-to-face with the unexpected at The Institute of Unpopular Science; a light police procedural about two unlikely partners stationed in the evidence room of a metropolitan police station; a crime procedural about a family of thieves who reunite to help a government agency solve crimes; and an epic historical drama series about the struggle in China for power and control of the lucrative opium trade during the late 19th Century.
