E1, Sky Not Falling?

THE TORONTO STAR'S Martin Knelman has the possible positive spin on the "well, guess we better wait and see," merger news I wrote about yesterday.

To anyone not involved in the film business, all this may seem like a bewildering game of chess, or possibly musical chairs. Why should we as mere moviegoers or taxpayers care?

Here's why. The government of Canada invested millions of dollars in Alliance Entertainment, a company founded in the mid-1980s with Loewy and his old friend Robert Lantos among its principals. Prior to its 1998 sale to its chief rival, Atlantis, Alliance was a huge operator that produced major movies and TV shows seen around the world, with huge subsidies from Ottawa.

But after 1998, Alliance Atlantis (as the company was renamed) gradually retreated from the risky business of producing films. Instead the new owners, led by Michael MacMillan, focused on the less dangerous business of acquiring channels.

Then in a controversial deal last year, MacMillan and cohorts sold the company to the New York financial giant Goldman Sachs and its partner CanWest Global (which took over the broadcast empire).

What may be most significant ultimately is that for the first time since 1998, Canada appears to have a strong film company capable of producing movies and TV shows here and selling them to the rest of the world. We can hope.

We certainly can. You know hope, right? It's the thing with feathers.

Little ee cummings shout out for you there.