It’s happening! The hotly anticipated sequel to Kenny Ortega’s Descendants, featuring the teenage sons and daughters of classic Disney heroes and villains, will shoot here this summer.
Who could have guessed that the lyrics to When You Wish Upon a Star — especially the “anything your heart desires will come to you” part — would ring true?
On a starry summer night at Hatley Castle in 2014, Ortega directed the modern fairy tale’s spectacular finale before wishing aloud: “I hope we have a Descendants 2 so we can come back.”
For those who’ve lived here long enough, this column’s first two words should have hinted that this “scoop” is an April Fool’s joke. Sorry. (Ortega really did say he wanted to shoot D2 here, however.)
“It’s happening!”, many of you might recall, became beleaguered former Victoria mayor Bob Cross’s catchphrase during the 1990s. His oft-repeated expression became a source of humour when it resurfaced amid a series of missed deadlines before a development deal was inked for the Memorial Arena’s transformation into the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
The genuine good news about Descendants is that Disney has announced that a sequel is in development, with original screenwriters Sara Parriott and Josann McGibbon commissioned to write it.
Whether Dove Cameron, Cameron Boyce, Booboo Stewart, Sofia Carson, Mitchell Hope and the gang reunite in and around Victoria, which masqueraded as the fairy-tale kingdom Auradon, remains to be seen, however. All we know for sure is that based on the phenomenal success of Disney’s original movie and the lucrative franchise it has spawned, there’s more to come, and hopes are high a chunk of it will be here.
With the estimated $500,000 the producers spent during the original’s week-long shoot, it’s no wonder locals have their fingers crossed.
On Your Mark, Get Set. . . After last year’s record-setting local film and TV production boom, stakeholders anticipated another busy year in Victoria, but it has been slow to start.
While film commission staff are fielding plenty of inquiries, with some undisclosed projects on tap, the Hallmark film Gourmet Detective: Death Al Dente is the only external project to have filmed so far.
Things are heating up in terms of indigenous production, however, including Ollie and Emma, a series of online episodes that begin shooting April 16.
The Telus Optik Local-funded series got off the ground after local writers Cheri Jacobs and Tom Pogson contacted Victoria producer Leslie Bland.
What began as a potential demo reel became a six-part series when Telus got on board, Bland said.
Ollie and Emma, which the makers hope will become a TV sitcom, focuses on the relationship between a young First Nations woman and her Caucasian boyfriend.
“It takes them from when they meet at the university library to their first date and first kiss,” said Bland, who is producing and directing. “They have chemistry and fall in love and don’t care about their [racial] differences, but people around them turn it into a thing.”
Obstacles include Ollie’s best friend, whom Bland describes as “this expat private school British twit who can’t censor himself,” and Emma’s sister Mandy.
“She’s an ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder], uber-proud aboriginal woman who celebrates her heritage in a very extroverted way,” said Bland, who is completing casting this weekend.
The nine-day shoot will take place at a local library, Songhees Wellness Centre, Peppers grocery store, Bean Around the World coffee Shop and Langford Lanes.
Bland, a theatre veteran, educator and former artistic director of Kaleidoscope Theatre, has also produced and directed She Kills Me for Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and Gone South: How Canada Invented Hollywood.
Developing online projects with traditional TV series potential is not uncommon, said Bland, citing Letterkenny as an example. The Canadian sitcom created by Jared Keeso and Jacob Tierney originated as a web series before debuting on The Comedy Network and CraveTV in February.
“There are a lot of eyeballs online, and there is an audience there to be served,” says Bland. “This allows us to develop what might be the first two or three episodes of a TV series.”
Rushes: Casting begins today for Campus Caller, Odyssey Media’s TV movie starring Victoria Pratt as a detective whose daughter goes missing. Actors and potential background performers are invited to apply for roles in the film that starts shooting in Nanaimo in the middle of the month. Send your photo and resumé to casting@odysseymediainc.com. . . . It’s no wonder Bryan Skinner’s Facebook post on piracy got so many likes from industry folk this week. CineVic’s former executive director wrote: “My waiter just told me he doesn’t pay for movies and he has terabytes of downloads. So I gave him a list of good movies and a torrent site URL instead of a tip.”