Latest in Canada

Prime Video announced The Kids in the Hall is set to premiere on May 13 followed by the companion docuseries The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks on May 20. More premiere dates and a slew of new Canadian originals were also revealed during the Prime Video Presents Canada showcase event in Toronto on Wednesday. Here’s a…

Canada, after delivering 7% of Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s $260M domestic opening weekend, will see its Quebec province shut down cinemas in addition to bars and gyms as public health officials look to slow the spread of the Omicron Covid variant. CBC reports that Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé made the decision…

Discovery+, which has launched in the UK, Europe and the U.S., will light up in Canada on October 19. The streaming service will join an increasingly crowded marketplace in a nation with 38 million residents. Disney+ and Apple TV+ are among the recent entrants competing with entrenched incumbents Netflix and Amazon…

Drunken Birds, the migrant drama from Serbian Canadian director Ivan Grbovic that had its world premiere in the Platform section at last month’s Toronto Film Festival, has been selected by Canada as the country’s entry into the 2022 International Feature Oscar race. Written by Grbovic and Sara Mishara, the film (Les oi…

Canada said Monday that it will begin easing restrictions on travel in and out of the country that have been in place since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic — news that will be welcome to organizers of this fall’s Toronto Film Festival, who have been planning an international event not knowing whether anybody…

Finally a breakthrough in the Great White North: Theaters in Ontario, which reps as much as 40% of Canada’s box office, are allowed to reopen on July 16 after several months of Covid lockdown, and just in time for the second weekend of Disney’s Black Widow. That includes Canada’s No. 1 chain, Cineplex, of course, in…

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has announced that the U.S. streaming giant will open a new office in Canada and hire a content chief dedicated to commissioning local originals. In a blog post, Sarandos said Netflix has spent $2.5 billion CAD ($2B) in Canada since 2017 and it’s time to double down on its presence in the…

IATSE is hailing the Canadian government's efforts to save its arts and entertainment sector during the Covid-19 pandemic through loans and wage subsidies in what is being billed as Canada's largest economic relief package since World War II. The plan, which still is working its way through the legislative process…

Universal has just inked another multi-year shortened theatrical window/Premium VOD share deal, this time with Canada’s biggest exhibitor Cineplex. The deal comes on the heels of Uni’s recent pact with No. 3 U.S. chain Cinemark. To date, Cineplex becomes the third exhibitor to agree to Uni’s truncated theatrical…

The Canadian import boom continues after NBC on Tuesday said it has picked up the medical drama Nurses. The network acquired U.S. rights to the hospital drama from eOne and ICF Films. It will add the show, which features Riverdale's Tiera Skovbye, to its primetime lineup in December. It marks the latest Canadian show…

Canada is sending Deepa Mehta's Funny Boy to this year's International Oscar race. The film is directed by Deepa Mehta, whose 2005 pic Water was Canada's submission that year and was Oscar nominated. Funny Boy, which is in Tamil, English and Sinhalese, depicts a young boy's sexual awakening in Sri Lanka during the…

EXCLUSIVE: With the Champions League staging a condensed tournament with March Madness-like potential, one of the soccer league’s key media partners is tapping a big basketball name to promote tournament coverage. DAZN, which has exclusive rights to the league in Canada, decided to embrace the unique trifecta of…