Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:48 pm Post subject: New Article About "18 to Life"
A UNITED EFFORT A new series about two 18-year-olds who decide to get hitched is being considered by ABC and CBC. For Galafilm, it would be a marriage made in heaven
Brendan Kelly, The Gazette
When we talked last week, soft-spoken Galafilm president Arnie Gelbart was - like most everyone else in the offices of his Mile End-based film and TV production company - anxiously waiting for a phone call from Hollywood that will have a huge impact on Galafilm's year. It's a call that could also be a much-needed shot-in-the-arm for the city's beleaguered production community that is desperately seeking more English-language shoots.
Galafilm has shot one pilot episode of the new half-hour sitcom 18 to Life, a show in development with both ABC in the U.S. and CBC here in Canada, and Gelbart is on tenterhooks waiting to see if the American network wants to push ahead and produce more episodes. That call has to be made real soon because CBC wants to air the show early in 2009, with ABC probaby putting it on its prime-time schedule just a little later. To make that deadline, Galafilm would, ideally, be shooting here in mid-September. The likelihood is that if it goes ahead, the networks would opt for eight episodes rather than a full season.
If ABC okays the order for more episodes, this would be the first time Montreal ever hosted the production of a series destined for one of the main U.S. TV networks.
"I think we'll get an order, one way or another," Gelbart said. "And I hope it's with ABC. The pilot has been very well received. I'm pretty upbeat. I was in L.A. last week and I was at a couple of (talent) agencies, and I showed them the pilot, and they all thought it was really good."
If ABC passes on buying more episodes, Gelbart is confident CBC will still run with it, but he'll have to find some extra financing to make up for the loss of the ABC cash.
The series, which sounds like a companion piece to the hit teen-pregnancy comedy Juno, is built around the concept that two 18-year-old neighbours decide to marry, to the horror of their parents. The two leads are both familiar to American TV audiences - 20-year-old Stacey Farber starred for years on Degrassi: The Next Generation, a big hit on the U.S. cable outlet The N, and 21-year-old Michael Seater has the title role in the sitcom Life With Derek, which airs on The Disney Channel south of the border.
"I think it's in the zeitgeist, particularly after the success of Juno," Gelbart said. "The writing is really good. It's funny and it captures something. The show, although it has two 18-year-olds at the heart of it, it's really about marriage because it's also about their parents and their parents' marriages. So it's really a kind of comedy that people haven't done in a while, about the tensions of marriage and being married for the first time. It seems to have captured the interest of the broadcasters because they feel (these themes) are in the air right now."
18 to Life was created by Derek Schreyer and Karen Troubetzko, the same creative team behind 15/Love, a Galafilm-produced sitcom, set in a tennis academy, that was shot here a few years back. Working with the teen actors on 15/Love inspired the Toronto-based duo, said Schreyer and Troubetzkoy, who created, wrote and executive produced the new series.
The 18 to Life cast also includes Peter Keleghan (The Newsroom), Al Goulem (The Tournament), Ellen David (Surviving My Mother), Angela Asher (Degrassi: The Next Generation), Jesse Rath (Prom Wars), Tiio Horn (Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis) and newcomers Tommie-Amber Pirie and Ariel Shiri.
If it goes ahead, each half-hour will cost about $750,000 to $800,000 to make.
The deal with ABC was brokered by Alchemy Television, a distributor based in Los Angeles and London, England - the same company that was instrumental in persuading CBS to pick up the Canadian-made cop series Flashpoint. That drama is garnering stellar ratings in the U.S. since its debut last month, and clearly Galafilm boss Gelbart is hoping 18 to Life might turn out to be the next Canadian TV export to wow audiences in the U.S.
Not that it probably means much to all of you, but to me... HUZZAH!
That's meaghan rath's brother. Who was a main cast member on 15/love. hells yeh. Do I have good taste in shows or what! I hope this takes off. _________________ ....In The End.... Only Kindness Matters.....
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