Fantasy werewolves are set to haunt Shiver — the much-anticipated film based on the first novel in the Wolves of Mercy Falls romantasy series which wrapped filming in Vancouver late last year.
But the financial wolves at the doors of the movie’s producers have put Shiver on ice — forcing the production company formed to make the film into insolvency and leaving hundreds of Canadian creditors out millions of dollars.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge placed Mercy Falls B.C. Inc into creditor protection this week after proceedings which lay bare a battle between the film’s producers and the U.S.-based studio which allegedly pledged $20 million to make the movie.
“Shiver was a big production in British Columbia,” says James Joyce, who is owed more than $24,000 for his work delivering the snow and ice needed to turn Lower Mainland sets into the movie’s Minnesota setting.
“They put a lot of people to work, and those people — you know what it’s like — you’ve got to pay your bills,” Joyce says.
“You paid for your gas to go to work, or you paid for your groceries to go to work, or if you’re in the catering company, or you provide porta-potties or whatever. You’ve put that money out and now I guess (the producer) can’t pay anybody.”
‘An imminent crisis’
The legal filings provide a window into a financial fight as pitched — if not quite as supernatural — as the interplay between humans and werewolves in author Maggie Stiefvater’s best-selling young adult fiction books.
The central characters in the court battle are Jeanette Volturno, president of Mercy Falls BC Inc., the company incorporated to produce Shiver and Ryan Hamilton, director of the Wyoming-based studio which owns the rights to make the book into a movie.
In an affidavit, Volturno claims as of May 8, the studio had only paid $11 million of the $20 million it agreed to provide and what cash it had given “frequently, if not always, came late, and was sent in piecemeal advances from various sources.”
“The failure by the studio to meet its funding obligations has caused an imminent crisis,” writes Volturno — an American who has worked on more than 95 feature films, including The Hunger Games and Academy Award winners Whiplash and Get Out.
“The (production company) has no access to the cash required to pay its vendors and trade creditors, which has put the production at a standstill.”
Shiver stars American actress and singer Maddie Ziegler as human Grace Brisbane and Australian actor and model Levi Miller as her werewolf boyfriend Sam Roth, who tempers his lupine lifestyle with shifts as his human self at a local bookstore.
The court documents say production began on the film in August 2024, with principal photography wrapping up in early December, when a lack of funds ground production to a halt.
“The production is now in the post-production phase, which consist of film editing, sound editing, audio and music, visual effects, creating a trailer and promoting and marketing the film to potential purchasers,” Volturno’s affidavit reads.
“The film was originally scheduled to be released to the public in July 2026. If (the production company) is able to pay its creditors and resume work, it intends to continue the production to completion in order to finish the film.”
Studio wants to complete film
The creditor protection process is intended to give a debtor breathing space by preventing any legal action from going ahead without the permission of the court while a company restructures or finds financing to pay off its debts .
The judge overseeing the case also appointed a third-party monitor to oversee the production company’s finances.
Last week, Hamilton filed an affidavit objecting to the proposal for creditor protection, accusing Volturno of substituting “substandard personnel on the production” and refusing to share information on the status of millions of dollars worth of provincial film tax credits.
Hamilton says his studio — not Volturno’s production company — owns the intellectual property rights to any part of Shiver already in the can.
He says the studio “has never sold, given, or otherwise relinquished any of its comprehensive rights in the film,” meaning any deals “premised upon the ownership or sale of the film by (Volturno’s production company) would constitute misappropriation of studio property.”
“It is (the) studio’s intention to complete and sell the film,” Hamilton wrote, calling on the judge to let the parties settle their differences “through routine business negotiation” instead of the Canadian courts.
“(The) studio is also the only realistic source of such financing in the future.”
‘Shame on you all’
According to the court filings, the production company owes $6.6 million to a variety of creditors in the US. and Canada — including more than $42,000 to the City of Vancouver and $17,500 to the Canada Revenue Agency.
Even award-winning Australian director Claire McCarthy is out $22,480 — money Volturno says has to be paid “before Ms. McCarthy will continue to work on the film.”
The court documents include lengthy email chains from creditors like Wendy Cohen — the head of a New York-based company which handles clearance and product placement.
“I’ve been told this $2,000 is forthcoming on five separate occasions now,” she wrote Hamilton earlier this month.
“In all my years in the film business I have never come across such blatant lying and stealing. Shame on you all. You should find another field to work in as you obviously don’t know how to budget or produce a film.”
Mark Hirschi, the owner of Salmon’s Transfer, is owed more than $43,000 for the work his company did packing, temporarily moving and unpacking the contents of houses used as sets during filming to “make it look like nobody was there.”
He says the financial problems surrounding Shiver have had a huge impact on the local film industry.
“It raises the hairs on the back of your neck,” he says.
“It makes you way more hesitant to work with the film industry, because there’s a sense of trust. When you’re working with other companies, we all have a sense of trust. You want to rely on that person to pay the bill. You’ve done the service, you pay the bill.”
