The Soul Patrol
Interview taken from www.canoe.ca
By JIM SLOTEK -- Toronto Sun
There's something Python-esque about Garth Drabinsky's return to the movie business. Literally.
Drabinsky is adding "movie producer" to his comeback credits, as he is assembling the financing for the feature-film directing debut of Eric Idle, of Monty Python fame.
The film The Remains Of The Piano, a spoof of Merchant-Ivory films, is to be shot in Toronto this summer and will star Geoffrey Rush (Shine).
"It's a piss-take on the genre," said Idle during a break in filming the Disney TV movie The Soul Patrol last week. "It's got everything a Merchant-Ivory film has: lovely costumes, lovely sets and lovely English acting.
"It's all set to go if Garth can ever find the final missing million. There's always a million missing in independent film. Somebody said trying to raise money for independent films is like trying to herd dogs."
Idle directed the cult classic 1979 TV film/Beatles spoof The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, and recently completed a sequel The Rutles: Can't Buy Me Lunch, which he played for his friend George Harrison just before Harrison's death.
"It made him smile," Idle said. "So far it's had an audience of one, but it's a good one."
Before Drabinsky's rollercoaster ride at LiveEnt -- a stint of achievements, monumental stage productions and a bitter dissolution marked by accusations of fraud, suits and countersuits -- he was head of the Cineplex Odeon theatre chain.
While the tangled part of his history plays itself out in years of legal wrangling (he still faces charges in the U.S. and is unable to travel there), he has begun moving on to a new phase: consulting for the Toronto Argonauts, producing the Canadian stage play The Island, and now assembling feature films.
TRAVEL CONSTRAINTS
"I never left (the film industry), but yeah, I'm getting back in," Drabinsky told The Toronto Sun yesterday. "(Co-producer) Joel Michaels and I acquired the rights to the script, and we're in the final throes of financing it.
"I've known Eric for some time. Eric did the first draft of the book of (the musical) Seussical when I was at LiveEnt. We have known each other for about six years."
Asked about Drabinsky's travel constraints as producer, Idle said, "Sure, he can't go to the States, but really you don't need to. There are all these useful tax things you've got going for the film industry here, plus there's the dollar, which is great."
Asked the same question, Drabinsky became heated. "I'm not going to get into that shit, okay? I'm moving ahead, doing a movie, okay? I'm doing other things, okay? Life goes on."
Okay.
ALL-STAR CASS: Idle's other two colleagues on The Soul Patrol are Kathy Najimy and Tommy Davidson. They play a trio of ghosts who help some children save the soul of their departed grandfather. Even as they wrap, however, Najimy is planning her return to Toronto this fall - as producer and star of a Mama Cass biopic for the U.S. Lifetime channel.
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