Northern Ontario company options film rights
HONORA BAY—The tragic Manitoulin Island story of Danny Dodge, heir to the automobile fortune of the same name, struck down in the prime of his life following an ill-advised adventure with some found sticks of explosives, is several steps closer to the silver screen with the signing of an option deal between screenwriters John Hawke and Deborah Wilson and Edge Enterprise owner Rosalie Chilelli for their 120-page screenplay, ‘A Lesser Known Heir.’
“We signed an option agreement, which is basically the right to buy the rights for two years,” said Ms. Chilelli.
The deal may have been sealed with the passing of a single loonie between the writers and producer, but the broad smiles on the writers’ faces presages their response.
“We are over the top,” beamed Ms. Wilson. “This is absolutely fantastic.”
“It’s okay,” agreed the famously laconic Mr. Hawke.
The experienced film production company is quite the coup for the writing team. The name Edge Enterprises might be familiar to fans of The Trailer Park Boys as the credits on the latest feature film outing of Canada’s favourite booze swilling misfits starring Mike Smith, Robb Wells, JP Tremblay and Pat Roach prominently feature the company as a service company on the production. This deal marks a move into full on production for the company, however.
“We will be first of all looking for development money,” said Ms. Chirelli. “That is the money we need for editing the script, setting up the budget and then finding the money to make the film.”
Ms. Chirelli said that “we love the project. We loved it from the beginning.” She noted that there is a long road between the signing of an option and seeing the final results of filming up on the screen. “It took Avatar 20 years to travel that road and there are no guarantees.”
But as a story written by Northern Ontario writers, being produced by a Northern Ontario company, the project is a wonderful story in and of itself.
“There are a lot of people working very hard to do what they love to do,” said Ms. Chirelli. While there are many films being shot in the North with plenty of famous names, most of those stories feature southern companies, with southern actors and largely southern production teams telling southern stories. This is a Northern Ontario story with strong southern connections with many of the hallmarks of a great story, including romance, aspects of a rags to riches odyssey, plenty of mystery and intrigue, suspense and involving one of the most famous names in American automotive history.
Hopefully, this optioning will be the first step in what one day will lead to the actual filming of the story on Manitoulin—but that goal is still a very long way off. “There are no guarantees,” Ms. Chirelli cautioned. “But we would love to see that happen.”
The couple credit a visit to the Centennial Museum of Sheguiandah where they had come upon “some newspaper clippings and the story of Danny Dodge,” said Mr. Hawke. “We thought at first about staging a play, but then we got caught up in the idea of turning it into a movie.”
The couple soon found themselves communicating with Old Mill Heritage Centre curator Rick Nelson, a self-avowed fan of the Danny Dodge saga, who provided them with a wealth of information from the museum’s collection of newspaper clippings, stories, photos and a number of books written about the Dodge family.
“The screenplay is based on the Danny Dodge story from the time he was seven-years-old until the time a little past his passing in a tragic accident,” said Mr. Hawke. “We take it from the time he and his family came to Manitoulin Island for vacations, from Michigan, and the family acquiring the Dodge Lodge from Helen Ford.”
In the meantime, the screenwriters are more than pleased with their progress so far. Both Mr. Hawke and Ms. Wilson are experienced in the theatre and familiar faces on Manitoulin stages. One of Mr. Hawke’s more recent credits was a stint playing a janitor on the TVO series Hard Rock Medical, but both have appeared in a number of movies over the past year or so. It was in being hired by Ms. Chirelli’s company for a background parts in films that the couple first connected with the producer.
