Thursday, June 20, 1996

HOLLYWOOD -- Superstar Wesley Snipes will shoot his next big movie, a dramatic thriller, in Toronto in August.

"We're going to shoot Executive Privilege in Toronto with Wesley," says Oscar-winning producer Arnold Kopelson. "I'm excited about that. Toronto's a real nice city. I've never shot in Toronto before but I've spent time there."

Kopelson, who joined the ranks of major Hollywood players when his production of Oliver Stone's Platoon won the best picture Oscar for 1986, has made a string of huge hits that have generated a total of more than $1 billion at the boxoffice. The titles include Seven, Outbreak and Falling Down.

His latest effort, the Arnold Schwarzenegger action thriller Eraser, opens across North America tomorrow and is touted as one of the year's guaranteed blockbusters.

The New York-born Kopelson said in an interview he is happy to be going back to Toronto as an established producer because, although he began his film career in Canada, it was as a U.S. lawyer helping out on tax shelter movies in the 1970s.

"I did two movies in Montreal and I was not happy with the results. I figured if I was going to continue like this, I was going to go out of business. They weren't the good old days.

"Now I have all the money I could ever want because it's just made available, if I have the projects, and I always have the projects because we work on them for years."


More Artists