Bona Film Group Scores $1.5 Billion Valuation as Shares Soar on Stock Market Debut

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Art-house title “Return to Dust” was a surprise weekend winner, topping the mainland China box office in its ninth weekend of release. The astonishing feat occurred on an otherwise depressed weekend in which China’s cinema box office dipped to a three-month low. This reflected the summer season winding to an end and anti-COVID measures once again forcing major Chinese cities into retreat. Data from consultancy Artisan Gateway showed “Return” grossing $5.3 million (RMB36.2 million) between Friday and Sunday. Those three days accounted for nearly half of the $12.7 million (RMB87.4 million) cumulative total it has earned since release on July 8, 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: Director James Gray has revealed to Deadline that Johnny, a pivotal character portrayed by Jaylin Webb (The Wonder Years) in Gray’s autobiographical film Armageddon Time, was killed during a drug deal in the mid-1980s, some six years after we last see him in the movie.

Paz Vega (Rambo: Last Blood, Spanglish) has signed on to star in the Salvadoran civil war drama Fireflies at El Mozote, which starts principal photography on location in El Salvador in November.

Wilson Chapman editor Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Sebastian Stan and Pete Davidson will lead the cast of “Dumb Money,” an upcoming film about last year’s GameStop stock market explosion. Based on the nonfiction book “The Antisocial Network” by Ben Mezrich, “Dumb Money” is directed by Craig Gillespie, from a script penned by Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum. Gillespie previously collaborated with Stan on his 2017 film “I, Tonya” and directed him and Rogen in several episodes of this year’s Hulu limited series “Pam & Tommy.” Gillespie produces with Teddy Schwarzman and Ryder Picture Company. “Dumb Money” focuses on the January 2021 “short squeeze” movement around GameStop, where users of the Reddit page “Wall Street Bets” banded together to artificially increase the stock values of video game retail chain GameStop, which suffered from lagging stock prices for years. The situation resulted in major hedge funds as well as independent short sellers taking significant financial losses, and it caused calls for more regulation of the stock market. Filming for the project, which focuses on the Reddit users behind the short squeeze, is set to begin this September.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “The Summer I Turned Pretty” Season 2 at Amazon has cast Kyra Sedgwick and Elsie Fisher in recurring roles. Variety exclusively reported that the show based on Jenny Han’s book series of the same name was renewed for a second season before Season 1 had premiered. Season 2 is currently in production but no premiere date has yet been set. “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is described as a multigenerational drama that hinges on a love triangle between one girl and two brothers, the ever-evolving relationship between mothers and their children, and the enduring power of strong female friendships. It is a coming-of-age story about first love, first heartbreak, and the magic of that one perfect summer.

Executives from China Film Group were recently treated to a screening of footage from Disney/20th Century Studios’ Avatar: The Way Of Water, receiving a surprise greeting from filmmaker James Cameron in the process. China Daily reported the news which Deadline has confirmed.

Naman Ramachandran The BFI London Film Festival has revealed eight titles that will be in official competition. The films include Santiago Mitre’s political drama “Argentina, 1985” (Argentina); Clement Virgo’s brotherly love tale “Brother” (Canada); Marie Kreutzer’s irreverent period drama “Corsage” (Austria-Luxembourg-Germany-France); Fyzal Boulifa’s atmospheric domestic drama “The Damned Don’t Cry” (France-Belgium-Morocco); Mark Jenkin’s folk horror tale “Enys Men” (U.K.); Hlynur Palmason’s historical epic “Godland” (Denmark-Iceland-France-Sweden); Soudade Kaadan’s poignant family film “Nezouh” (U.K.-Syria-France); and Alice Diop’s courtroom drama “Saint Omer.”

Making its European premiere, Sally El Hosaini’s The Swimmers has been set as the opening film of the 18th Zurich Film Festival. Based on the inspirational true-life story of the Mardini sisters, it will screen on September 22 at Zurich’s Convention Center. It will earlier world premiere as the opening night gala presentation in Toronto.

The woman suing Horatio Sanz for alleged sexual assault has added Jimmy Fallon to the suit. In a filing obtained by Deadline on Tuesday, the woman, who claims former Saturday Night Live star Sanz sexually assaulted her in 2002, added Fallon, Tracy Morgan, and SNL creator Lorne Michaels to the complaint as “enablers”. The original filing claimed Sanz assaulted the woman - who remains anonymous - when she was 17.

The upcoming British version of Jimmy Fallon’s show That’s My Jam will shoot entirely in LA after a successful pilot, Universal Television Alternative Studio chiefs confirmed today here at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

A Pennsylvania woman filed legal papers today in an attempt to add Jimmy Fallon, Tracy Morgan and Lorne Michaels to a 2021 lawsuit in which she accuses then-Saturday Night Live castmember Horatio Sanz of sexually assaulting her when she was 17.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKakao Piccoma, a Japanese online animation firm, has reportedly pushed back its plans for a share listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, previously indicated for December this year. The company hopes that the delay will help it hold on to a $6 billion valuation.The company is jointly owned by Kakao, the Korean tech and messaging giant, and Kakao Entertainment, with shareholding respectively 73% and 18%. Piccoma raised finance last year though a private share sale that brought in Anchor Capital, valued it at JPY847 billion ($6.17 billion at current exchange rates).

The widow of murdered Scots aid worker David Haines said there was 'no forgiveness' as a British member of an ISIS terror group who killed her husband was jailed for life in the US on Friday. El Shafee Elsheikh was sentenced for his role in the hostage-taking scheme after being convicted by a jury in April this year.

“SEALTeam” is headed to Northern Syria in the heart-pounding trailer for Season 6 of the Paramount+ series, which dropped Friday.In addition to the trailer, which shows Clay (Max Thieriot) in bad shape, the streamer announced the 10-episode season will premiere Sept. 18.The military drama follows the professional and personal lives of the “most elite unit of Navy SEALs as they train, plan and execute the most dangerous, high stakes missions our country can ask of them.

Clayton Echard and Susie Evans fell in love on the most recent season of The Bachelor and they didn’t get engaged at the end, but continued as a couple.

Liam Delap had a 'gut feeling' that he should join Stoke City on loan, despite the Manchester City striker having plenty of other clubs interested in his services.

China’s Bona Film Group, producer of such hits as The Battle At Lake Changjin, made its debut on the Shenzhen stock exchange on Thursday, with shares closing the day at RMB 7.24 ($1.07). This was a 44% increase from the initial public offering price of RMB 5.03 ($0.74) per share and put the market capitalization at just under RMB 10B ($1.47B), according to the South China Morning Post. The company raised RMB 1.38B ($203M) from the deal.

Owen Wilson has been reprimanded by Marvel Studios. In an interview with ComicBook, Wilson shared that the studio is "kind of uptight" when it came to the actor sharing details about the "Loki" series.  "Yeah, we're doing that.

site set aside for it, you won’t get any information on what Flow actually is. But it’s a project aimed at “connecting people through transforming their physical spaces and building communities where people spend the most time: their homes,” according to one of its investors.That investor is Andreessen Horowitz, a massive venture capital firm that was an early investor in companies like Facebook and Airbnb.