The Circus Life

The critically acclaimed Cirque du Soleil returns Sept. 20 to begin another stint on the Santa Monica beach, but Columbia Pictures won’t be joining the circus as once planned.

Recall that when the Montreal-based, new wavish circus came to town early last year, Columbia bought out an entire performance to entertain Hollywoodites--and announced plans for a feature film based on the circus. But, hoopla notwithstanding, the project never got much further than freebie admissions for prospective directors.

“We couldn’t go along with Columbia on questions of merchandising and control of the feature story,” circus spokesman Jean Heon reported from Quebec. But the Cirque movie idea lives on, Heon added. “There is definitely interest elsewhere.”

Helene Dufreisne, president of Cirque Du Soleil’s sister production company, Telemagik, told us that plans now call for in-house development of the film story--and a future partnership with another production company.

“We want to keep as artistically involved as possible,” she said. “After all, this is our life.”