Barney's Version, Fubar sequel get Cancon movie funding

A film adaptation of Mordecai Richler's novel Barney's Version produced by Canadian movie mogul Robert Lantos and starring indie favourite Paul Giamatti as the titular curmudgeon is among a new batch of Canadian productions in the works this year.

Telefilm Canada announced that the Canadian Feature Film Fund has awarded money to 83 English-language movie productions, including Barney's Version.

Other projects that received funding include a sequel to the heavy-metal mockumentary Fubar, a film by comedian Mary Walsh based on her Marg Delahunty character and a movie entitled Paradise Redrawn co-scripted by George Stroumboulopoulos and Bob Mackowycz of CBC-TV's The Hour.

More details about Lantos's Barney's Version film, based on Richler's final award-winning novel, also emerged in industry papers and other media.

To be co-produced by Serendipity Point Films and Italian company Fandango, the movie will begin shooting in August in Rome, Montreal, New York and Quebec's Laurentian Mountains, according to Variety.

Barney's Version will be helmed by Richard J. Lewis, a prolific TV director (predominantly for TV hit C.S.I.) who worked with Lantos on the 1994 Canadian film Whale Music.

Two other novels by the iconic Richler, who died in 2001, have previously been adapted for film by director Ted Kotcheff: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (starring Richard Dreyfuss) and Joshua Then and Now (produced by Lantos and starring James Woods).

CBC Radio adapted Barney's Version as a four-hour radio play starring Canadian actor Saul Rubinek in 2003.