The opening of Guns, a new two-part miniseries in which a young girl is gunned down on Toronto’s Yonge Street, will likely seem disturbingly familiar to viewers. It’s all too similar to the infamous Boxing Day 2005 shooting in downtown T.O., when teenager Jane Creba was killed and six other bystanders wounded during a shootout between youth gangs.

The incident shocked the city and led to calls for a crackdown on gangs and gun violence in Toronto. But producer/co-writer Jennifer Holness says her fictional scene is meant to convey the randomness of gun violence. Guns, she says, pushes the audience to realize ‘that this can happen anywhere, at any time.’

The $8.5-million 2×120 mini ‘takes you behind the headlines to the people who run the guns,’ she explains. Colm Feore (Bon Cop, Bad Cop) plays an arms dealer and stars with Elisha Cuthbert (24), Shawn Doyle (The Eleventh Hour) and Stephen McHattie (300).

Shooting mostly in Hamilton, Ont. – with a few days each in the suburbs and Toronto’s downtown core – Guns is expected to air in fall 2008 with a big push from the CBC, according to Holness, despite the fact that minis seem to be out of favour at the net these days.

This story first appeared in Playback Daily.