`Due South': The Show, the Strategy; Canada's Biggest Producer Has an Ambitious Goal -- Hitting It Big in Hollywood
In the dark, smoky air of a dive called the Neon Cowboy, a ramrod-straight, red-coated Mountie and his partner, a Chicago cop, stroll by the stage. As they pass the gyrating dancers, a stripper bends down provocatively and sweeps her long hair over the Mountie's face. He pretends not to notice.</br></br>It's just another good-vs.-sleaze scene in the television program "Due South," the buddy show on CBS in which square-jawed Canadian actor Paul Gross plays Mountie Benton Fraser, American actor David Marciano plays American detective Ray Vecchio and Toronto plays Chicago.</br></br>"Due South" does a fair approximation of a U.S.-made TV show, but it's not one. It is the only foreign-made series running on U.S. prime-time network television. The company that makes it, Alliance Communications Corp., has high hopes of being the first foreign company to establish a major and regular presence in the U.S. entertainment market.</br></br>"Five years ago, we embarked on a strategy that heavily targeted U.S. networks," said Robert Lantos, Alliance's chairman and founder. "A market which is 50 percent to 70 percent of global revenue should be reflected in our balance sheet."</br></br>Other Canadian production companies have succeeded in getting the occasional TV movie or animated cartoon on the air south of the border. But penetrating the major networks is tough.