Lawyers, Guns and Money

[SteelTown]

New Series from Global
by Staff
http://www.northernstars.ca/News/0509010806_glbl.html

(May 1, 2009 – Toronto, Ontario) -- Luke Kirby and Callum Keith Rennie will star in two new series that will go before the cameras this summer.

Lawyers, Guns and Money stars Kirby as Jimmy Burns, a young claims adjuster for a cut-throat corporation. Jimmy maneuvers his way around insurance scams and the criminal underworld all while trying to escape his past  and make a better life for himself on the gritty streets of Hamilton. The cast also features Clark Johnson (pictured at riught) and Caroline Cave. Created by the man who gave us Street Legal and Deadwood, Malcolm MacRury has also signed on as the series Showrunner.

Meanwhile, Callum Keith Rennie will star in Shattered, which follows the exploits of Kyle Logan, a brilliant detective, whose multiple-personality-disorder has a major affect on his job.

Lawyers, Guns and Money is produced by Whizbang Films Inc., the Toronto-based company created by Paul Gross and Frank Siracusa who are the creative forces behind the Genie-Award Winning production Passchendaele.

Shattered is produced by leading independent studio E1 Entertainment and Force Four Films Ltd. Rick Drew wrote the pilot. Executive producers are Hugh and Debra Beard from Force Four (producers of the award-winning miniseries Human Cargo) and Noreen Halpern, John Morayniss and Laszlo Barna for E1 Entertainment, the company behind Hung, Copper and The Bridge. E1 Entertainment will handle worldwide distribution for the series.

Both productions have been green-lit for Showcase. The 13 episode one-hour dramas will begin production this summer and are scheduled to air later in the year.

[ryan_mcgreal]

This can only bode ill for Hamilton's image outside the city.

[SteelTown]

I think the last TV show set in Hamilton was that hockey show, think it was about a Hamilton NHL owner and was mostly filmed at Copps.

Showcase is one of my favourite channel, Kenny vs. Spenny pure gold haha.

[Millstone]

is this actually being filmed in Hamilton or

[SteelTown]

You get further tax incentives if you film outside of the GTA so yea mostly likely.

[flar]

is this actually being filmed in Hamilton or

If it's the gritty streets of Hamilton, where else could they film it?

[Millstone]

If it's the gritty streets of Hamilton, where else could they film it?

Cornwall, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg...

[matt602]

Should be interesting to see the Hammer play a bigger role than the backdrop on a TV commercial or acting as another city, even if it's in a negative light. Grit isn't always a bad thing, as flar has taught us :)

[rousseau]

Winnipeg...
Stucco cottages on elm-lined streets with three-metre grass strips between the sidewalk and curb, interrupted by the odd Chicago-style tenement?

Sounds just like Hamilton.

[drpgq]

Should be interesting to watch if there are tons of Hamilton scenery. Hell I bought Four Brothers just for the Hamiltonia. I haven't stooped to buying Exit Wounds, although I have considered it.

[highwater]

Saint Ralph is another film where Hamilton gets to play Hamilton. And a thoroughly delightful film as well.

[drpgq]

Changed up the name I guess.

Hamilton gets Showcased

August 14, 2009
Mary K. Nolan
The Hamilton Spectator
(Aug 14, 2009)

Oh, boy ... a TV drama about insurance. That'll put viewers on the edge of their seats.

No, really. It will, promises Frank Siracusa, executive producer of the new series Cra$h & Burn, which is currently being filmed in Hamilton.

"The series is made up of humans," he says, "and with humans, there is sex, there is cheating, there is lying, there is love, there is conflict, all the things that make us humans."

The last -- and perhaps only -- time that insurance served as entertainment was in 2003-2005, when Joely Fisher played a blackjack dealer turned insurance investigator in the popular Zoe Busiek: Wild Card series.

In this incarnation, the industry's seamy underside is exposed by hunky, Hamilton-born Luke Kirby in the role of brooding insurance claims adjuster Jimmy Burn.

Kirby, who was raised in Guelph, has appeared in Law & Order, Slings and Arrows, Flashpoint and Mambo Italiano, among other projects.

Shooting on Cra$h & Burn, described as a cross between The Office and The Sopranos, began at the end of July and will continue in and around Hamilton and in studio until Dec. 10. The first of 13 episodes will be aired on Showcase in early November.

And for a change, Hamilton will just be Hamilton -- not Detroit, New York, the Middle East, Washington, Mexico or Small-town, U.S.A. -- all of which and more it has been in past productions.

Producer Siracusa said the city is a perfect fit with the character and the plot. Jimmy Burn has had some struggles in life. His bailiwick is neither booming metropolis nor rural backwater.

He is described in the publicity bumpf as someone who "manoeuvres his way around insurance scams and the criminal underworld as he tries to escape his past and make a better life on the gritty post-industrial streets of Hamilton."

Siracusa says the film crew has been using all of Hamilton's assets, from woodlands to waterfront to downtown. But in order to increase the series' global appeal, the city will not be geographically pinpointed -- it won't be Hamilton, Ont., but just Hamilton, "a place where our lead guy is living."

Publicist Adrienne Kakoullis says the insurance angle has a broad audience appeal because it's familiar to everyone.

Consumers have definite opinions (not always good) about the industry (not always good.)

"This is a behind-the-scenes look at the adjusters, the claims, the frauds and the new guy on the scene, trying to muscle his way up the corporate ladder. It's the fine line between the good and the bad of the business."

As Siracusa puts it: "Insurance is usually a case of protection against bad things that can happen, and we're showing the bad things."

Siracusa, a partner in Whizbang Films with actor Paul Gross, says he is excited about the series.

"I'm a big believer in script. If you don't have solid written material, your chances of being picked up are fifty-fifty. This material is so good, the chances of pickup are very good. I'm very optimistic."

mnolan@thespec.com

905-526-4689