TORONTO MOVIE/TV NEWS

Monday, March 14, 2011

"The Hot Zone" (aka "Combat Hospital") Starts Toronto Shoot

Shaw Media reports that production on Global Television’s new, medical drama "The Hot Zone" (aka "Combat Hospital") has started shooting in Toronto. Commissioned by Global’s original content team and picked up by ABC in the US, the 13 x 1 hour-episode series will lense in Toronto to July 2011.

"...'The Hot Zone' is a fictional medical procedural set in 2006 at the only military hospital providing advanced surgical care in all of Southern Afghanistan. The series charts the frantic lives of the hospital’s resident doctors and nurses from Canada, America, the U.K. and other allied countries. This highly-charged series follows the characters as they navigate their way through the relentless life-and-death battles on the operating table, and the never-ending conflicts that arise from working in a war zone military hospital..."

Cast includes Elias Koteas as 'Colonel Marks', Michelle Borth as Canadian surgeon 'Dr. Rebecca Gordon', Luke Mably as neurosurgeon 'Dr. Simon Hill', Deborah Kara Unger as Australian army psychiatrist 'Major Ada Pedersen', Terry Chen as trauma team leader 'Captain Bobby Trang' and Arnold Pinnock as 'Commander Will Royal', Chief of Nursing.

The series is being shot on a 185,000 sq. ft indoor/outdoor set recently constructed in Toronto, noted as one of the largest standing sets ever built for a Canadian original production, modelled after the real Canadian-lead 'NATO Role 3 Hospital' at Kandahar Airfield.

The set is a re-creation of a portion of the hospital compound and the vast Kandahar Airfield, including the helicopter landing zone, boardwalk area and barracks, which housed over 15,000 military and civilian personnel.

"The Hot Zone" is from Canada’s Sienna Films and the UK’s Artists Studio. Academy Award-nominated Daniel Petrie Jr. ("Beverly Hills Cop") is executive producer/showrunner. Also executive producing are Jennifer Kawaja, Julia Sereny for Sienna Films, Gub Neal, Justin Thomson-Glover and Patrick Irwin for UK-based Artists Studio and Simon Vaughan of Lookout Point.

"The Hot Zone" was created by Jinder Oujla-Chalmers and Douglas Steinberg, with Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) acquiring all media rights in the series outside of North America. Sony Pictures Television (SPT) will distribute the series internationally.

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