Claire Simon Documentary ‘Our Body’ Acquired By Cinema Guild

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce and media group, unveiled a top to bottom corporate restructuring that it says is intended to “unlock shareholder value and foster market competitiveness.”  The group, which has a current market capitalization of $228 billion, will split itself into six divisions of differing sizes. Each unit will have a CEO and a board of directors and can pursue independent fund-raising or even IPOs, when they are ready. At present Alibaba has its shares and ADR shares listed in Hong Kong and New York. Some parts of its media business also have their own Hong Kong share listing Alibaba Pictures. (And there is a healthcare business with yet another share quote.)

Disney’s live-action take on The Little Mermaid has been cleared for theatrical release in China, as has Fast X — the penultimate installment in Universal’s long-running Fast & Furious action franchise. Dates are still to be set for both films in the market which has increasingly been handing out day-and-date releases for Hollywood titles even if audiences have been somewhat tepid of late. Hope springs.

Naman Ramachandran Yash Raj Films’ “Pathaan” is the biggest Indian hit of the year so far grossing $130 million. The studio’s Akshaye Widhani also served as a co-producer on the film. Part of the release strategy around “Pathaan” was keeping Shah Rukh Khan away from the film’s promotions, creating curiosity around the superstar’s comeback film, the first time he’d headlined a project since 2018’s “Zero.” “There was a lot of excitement and hunger to see India’s biggest movie star on screen after four years. We wanted to preserve that. So when we got into a room with him to talk about marketing the film, we all felt what if we went with a different strategy this time, which is less is more. So we hold back Shah Rukh, not have him seen pre-release, not have him interact with anybody pre-release,” Widhani told Variety. “But once the the film is out, then we come out into the media. That was a conscious decision and one that paid off well, because the whole excitement to go watch him on screen became even more, and the hunger increased when you didn’t see him. And it worked well for us.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japanese animation film “Suzume” made just shy of $50 million on its opening weekend in mainland Chinese theaters. Data from consultancy Artisan Gateway, shows “Suzume” grabbing the top spot at the box office with $49.6 million (RMB342 million) between Friday and Sunday. That is the biggest opening score by any film this year outside of the Chinese New Year holiday week in late January. The next best is “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” which opened with $19.4 million in mid-February. Directed by Shinkai Makoto, “Suzume” was a hit in Japan where it was released late last year and has remained on screens for a $105 million total. It played in February at the Berlin Film Festival, where it came away largely empty-handed, but has subsequently performed strongly in the Asian territories where it has released. (In South Korea, where it is now the second highest grossing film released in 2023, its third weekend is its strongest to date.)

Ben Croll Mixing two parts maternal melodrama, one part fugitive thriller, and finishing with a precocious, child-actor twist, Nippon TV’s “Mother” format has proven an irresistible international cocktail, driving remake rights and series exports across the globe. Taking a victory lap of sorts at this week’s Series Mania Forum, Nippon TV’s director of international business development Yuki Akehi joined Spanish producer Eduardo Galdo to unpack this format-sales phenomenon. Created by Yuji Sakamoto and initially commissioned for broadcast in 2010, “Mother” follows a thirtysomething schoolteacher who feels her first ever pangs of maternal instinct when confronted with an 8-year-old pupil from an abusive home. Instinctively absconding with the girl and heading out on the lam, the new fugitive and her willing charge forge deep bonds beyond a legal framework.

Nick Cannon has a regret about parenthood — but it’s not what you’d expect.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor In front of a panel of skeptical and often hostile U.S. representatives, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew tried to make the case for why the popular app is not a security threat to the country — and why a government ban of the app would be the wrong course of action. A U.S. ban of the app would hurt the country’s economy, reduce competition and “silence the voices of over 150 million Americans,” Chew said in testimony submitted to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The hearing, titled “TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms,” was held Thursday morning in Washington, D.C. The Biden administration recently demanded that ByteDance divest its ownership stake in TikTok or potentially be banned in the U.S. over national-security concerns given TikTok’s Chinese ownership. Under pending congressional legislation, which has bipartisan support, President Biden would have the authority to ban TikTok under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief It is becoming harder not to perceive Tencent, China’s tech and entertainment giant and the world’s largest games firm by revenue, as a utility. It is now too big to be a growth stock darling and too widely-spread to escape the gravity of China’s underlying economic trends. Revenues in calendar 2022 flatlined at RMB554 billion, while net profits dropped 16% to RMB188.2 billion ($27.0 billion). The decrease reflected China’s economic reversal that began in the second quarter of the year with the arrival of a new COVID strain and stricter government measures to combat it. Tencent’s advertising revenues fell slightly, costs rose somewhat, and subscriber number were mixed – rising in music, but falling in video.

Naman Ramachandran New York-based film and TV studio and streaming network FilmRise has acquired North American distribution rights to true-crime documentary feature film “The Thief Collector.” Directed by Emmy winner Allison Otto (“The Love Bugs”), the film follows one of the most audacious and puzzling art thefts of a generation. In 1985, Willem de Kooning’s seminal work, “Woman-Ochre,” was sliced from its frame and stolen off the walls of the University of Arizona Museum of Art, disappearing into the desert. Over 30 years later, in a remote town in New Mexico, the $160 million dollar painting was rediscovered in the unlikeliest of places – the home of an eccentric married couple, both schoolteachers, with a keen eye for great works but a very unconventional method of collecting them. The film features Glenn Howerton co-creator, director, writer and star of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

Michael Winterbottom has devoted much of his filmmaking career to revisiting real-life events through works blurring the boundaries between documentary and drama to various degrees.  

How could a trip to the motherland go so hilariously, disastrously wrong? The quartet at the heart of Adele Lim’s “Joy Ride” – Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu – have no idea what they’re in for at the top of the trailer, which Lionsgate released Friday ahead of the film’s premiere at SXSW.The trailer begins with the origin story of Audrey (Park) and Lolo’s (Cola) friendship, when they meet at a park as young kids. Lolo punches a white boy in the throat after he calls Audrey a racist slur, sealing the deal on their lifelong friendship.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The recent reopening of the mainland Chinese box office, including a $1 billion Chinese New Year holiday season, has put a different complexion on the global theatrical industry. Few companies could be closer to that change in fortune than Imax China, a stock market-listed subsidiary of the Imax Corp. The company operates as both a supplier of screens, audio and projection equipment for premium cinemas and as a partner in making local Chinese films fit for exhibition in the giant format. During Chinese New Year, Imax was represented by “Avatar: The Way of Water” and four Chinese movies. Daniel Manwaring, CEO of Imax China, spoke to Variety in his first interview since taking on the top job in January.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired North American rights for Belgian director Bas Devos’s film Here which won best film in the Berlin Film Festival’s Encounters section last month as well as the Fipresci prize.

“Masked Singer” host did not attend the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday night but gave TMZ his feedback on Kimmel’s opening monologue, which included a joke about him and his12 offspring. “Disney spent $2 billion on this movie, and just to break even, all of Nick Cannon’s kids had to see ‘Avatar’ four times,” Kimmel, 55, joked about theOscar-winning“Avatar: The Way of Water.”“It’s hilarious,” Cannon told the outlet while leaving the Avra Beverly Hills restaurant.“I created ‘Wild ‘n Out,'” he added about his longtime improv, comedy TV series.

EXCLUSIVE: Drift director Anthony Chen is gearing up to direct his first US-set project, Heartbeat: A New York Story, about the rarely-told experiences of the Asian gay community during the AIDS epidemic in 1980s New York.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief American musical comedy film “Lyle Lyle Crocodile,” is set to release in mainland China cinemas, having received approvals for import and distribution from Chinese authorities. It will play in China from April 15, 2023. The film was released in North America in early October last year and many other territories at the end of 2022. Parts of Asia have been later to receive the title with Korea and Taiwan play it from January and Japan set to open it from March 24. The film has grossed $108 million worldwide, with $60.9 million of that coming from international markets and $46.8 million from the North American domestic market, studio backer Sony Pictures reported.

fathering 12 kids with six different women in recent years.But this time, he’s in on the joke. Cannon shocked the internet on Tuesday when he began promoting a fake game show titled “Who’s Having My Baby?” to be released on the E! network this spring.The actor shared a promo video that truly looked like an E! television commercial teasing a new show with Kevin Hart that would be “the mother of all game shows.”“We’re not kidding around,” the narrator said in the fake ad — though they were.

Nick Cannon’s new game show “Who’s Having My Baby?” sounds more like a sketch than an actual TV show… that’s because you’re right. No, there won’t be a TV show called “Who’s Having My Baby?” because, well, what would that show even look like anyway? Instead, the idea for “Who’s Having My Baby?” is actually a gag, orchestrated by comedian Kevin Hart, as a sketch for an upcoming, not-yet-announced project. According to insiders, all will be revealed as soon as tomorrow, as Hart continues to expand his empire with another comedy franchise inside the NBCUniversal universe. That doesn’t mean Hart and Cannon aren’t having some fun first with the confusion over the faux TV series. Cannon went on Twitter Tuesday to claim he would be starring in E! Entertainment’s “Who’s Having My Baby?” and even shared a teaser. (Yes, that’s a sketch, not a show.) As hosted by Hart, the fake show would appear to be a competition between single women eager to birth Cannon’s next child.

After three years of taking place entirely online, Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (Filmart), the largest content market in Asia before the pandemic, is finally returning as a fully-fledged in-person event (March 13-16, 2023). 

new “baby mama” in mind should he choose to welcome baby No. 13.The 42-year-old host was joined by “The Real Housewives of New York City” alum Luann de Lesseps, 57, on Wednesday’s episode of “The Masked Singer” as she provided the judges with clues to guess the identity of the masked performer Medusa.But before the cabaret singer could give her hints, Cannon told the audience that the duo “have a love thing going” — to which she replied, while caressing his shoulder, “We do, we do,” according to The Sun. Lesseps then joked to Cannon that she “wouldn’t tell — if he didn’t,” as judge Robin Thicke perfectly interjected, “We will all find out nine months later.”The remark both stunned and amused the fellow judges and live audience, the outlet reported.