‘Cop Secret’ Closes North America, France (EXCLUSIVE)

EXCLUSIVE: AMC Networks has acquired North American rights to Monsieur Spade, a one-hour drama starring Clive Owen from The Queen’s Gambit co-creator Scott Frank and City On A Hill showrunner Tom Fontana. Black Bear Television also has joined as the series’ studio and will deficit finance.

Naman Ramachandran Michel Fessler, co-writer of “Little Nicholas,” selected at Cannes this year as a special screening, has boarded Ravi K. Chandran’s “Tamara” as scriptwriter.Based on a story by Paris-based playwright and actor Vasanth Selvam (“Dheepan”), the film will follow 26-year-old Indian origin woman Tamara from Camargue in the south of France, who seeks her roots in the southern Indian territory Pondicherry, which was once a French colony.

Naman Ramachandran Indian actor Jackie Shroff (“Sooryavanshi”) will play the lead in Singapore-France-India co-production “Slow Joe,” it was revealed at the Cannes Film Market.Shroff will play the late Indian musician Joseph Manuel Da Rocha, known as Slow Joe, a former heroin addict and drug dealer who was born in Mumbai, was disowned by his family, heartbroken at 50 and who moved to Goa and cleaned up. On a trip to Goa in 2007, Lyon-based French musician Cédric de la Chapelle met Joe, now a frail 64-year-old who was making ends meet as a hotel room broker. Joe, also a poet and musician, sang for de la Chapelle, who was captivated by his voice and recorded some of his a cappella songs.Back in France, de la Chapelle played Joe’s songs for music producer Olivier Boccon-Gibod of Horizon Musiques, who was also entranced.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorShe loved raspberry sorbet, avocados and anything by John Mayer. She had a smile that you had to work for, as family members recalled, but once it spread across her tiny face, there was no more joyous feeling in the world.Evan Francis Buckner, who died April 28 at the age of 3 and a half, was remembered Tuesday morning at a memorial service in Malibu as an indomitable spirit.

While Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden dealt with a lot of sex and kink in its story of a handmaiden who gets into the good graces of her Japanese heiress, only to defraud her, the Korean filmmaker in his latest Decision to Leave, dotes on a detective Hae-Joon (Park Hae-il) who is head over heels with a very possible murder suspect, Seo-rae (Tang Wei).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefCinema box office this year in North America is poised to overtake theatrical revenues in China, the country that has been the world’s largest movie market for the past two years.Before the latest weekend, gross revenues in the year to date stood at $2.38 billion for the North American compared with $2.43 billion for China, according to data from ComScore.U.K.-based research firm Gower Street Analytics forecast that the North American figure would overtake China’s revenues over the weekend or early this week. That reflects business growth in North America and the current reversal in China, where anti-COVID measures are causing renewed cinema closures.Gower Street says that some 85% of global cinemas are now open for business, compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Fashion-savvy parents! Tan France and Gigi Hadid bonded over their stylish careers and parenthood while filming Netflix’s Next In Fashion together.

Neon has landed North American rights at Cannes to La Chimera, the tomb-robbing drama from writer-director Alice Rohrwacher that stars Josh O’Connor and Isabelle Rossellini.

Crunchyroll announced Thursday the acquisition of Makoto Shinkai’s anime feature “Suzume no Tojimari” for all territories outside of Asia. “Suzume no Tojimari,” which follows a 17-year-old girl named Suzume who must close various doors that are causing destruction throughout Japan, will debut in Japan on November 11 this year from Toho, and will be distributed in all major territories beginning in early 2023.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorThis year, Global Accessibility Awareness Day falls on May 19. And Netflix is using the occasion to announce major plans to expand the global translations of its audio descriptions and subtitles for customers who are blind, deaf or hard-of-hearing.The streamer will expand audio description (AD), subtitles for the deaf or hard-of-hearing (SDH) and dubbing in more than 10 additional languages throughout the year starting this month — so that more Netflix members with disabilities can experience shows and films made in another country in their local language. That’s not the norm in the entertainment industry at large.Netflix is starting with French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Italian, and expanding from there to Asian languages including Korean and Japanese as well as European local languages.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefSoi Cheang’s “Twilight of The Warriors: Walled In” has been licensed to WellGo USA for North American release. The deal with Hong Kong’s Media Asia marks a rare advanced-sale of a commercial Cantonese-language movie in a market that has recently been marked by uncertainty.The action thriller is a live-action adaptation of the cult manga series “City of Darkness” that is set in the 1980s inside the almost lawless Kowloon Walled City.With a stellar cast headlined by Louis Koo (“Election”), Sammo Hung (“Ip Man”) and Richie Jen (“Trivisa”), the film recently completed production and is now in post-production.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBeta Cinema has sold the English-language tragicomedy “My Neighbor Adolf” to several major territories. The film stars German actor Udo Kier and Scottish actor David Hayman, and is directed by Israel’s Leon Prudovsky.All rights for North America have gone to Cohen Media Group, Signature Entertainment has acquired the U.K./Ireland rights, I Wonder took Italy, Lumix Media has South Korea and Tohokushinsha Film took Japan.The film, set in 1960, centers on Polsky, a Holocaust survivor, who lives in the remote Colombian countryside.

EXCLUSIVE: Omar Sy’s star continues to burn bright on Netflix, as the French star’s thriller The Takedown comfortably held on to top spot in the streamer’s non-English language film chart.

Kehlani has announced details of a UK, European and North American tour that will run from July through to December.The Bay Area artist will tour in support of their third studio album ‘Blue Water Road’, which was released last month.Kehlani will embark on the ‘Blue Water Road Trip’ on July 30 in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a string of North American tour dates running until October with a date in Honolulu, Hawaii on October 21.She will then head to Europe in November for a number of live dates, which will conclude with a run of UK and Ireland shows in London, Dublin, Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester.General sale tickets for Kehlani’s UK dates will go on sale here this Friday (May 20) from 10am, while tickets for the North American shows can be bought here from 10am local time on Friday.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaWestEnd Films has closed a series of new deals on “Out of the Blue,” an upcoming thriller that brings together Neil LaBute and Diane Kruger.Rights for the film, which LaBute writes and directs, have gone to Australia and New Zealand (Kismet Movies), France (Metropolitan Filmexport), Germany (Koch Films), Spain (A Contracorriente Films), Italy (Eagle Pictures), Middle East (Phoenicia Pictures) Israel (Forum Film), Poland (Galapagos Films), Greece (Spentzos Film), former Yugoslavia (Investacommerce) and Portugal (Nos Lusomundo). WestEnd is also sharing a moody first-look image.Kruger, best known for her performances in “Inglourious Basterds” and “Troy,” leads an ensemble that also includes Ray Nicholson (“Promising Young Woman”), Hank Azaria (“Love & Other Drugs”) and Chase Sui Wonders (“Genera+ion”).

Manori Ravindran International EditorThe first trailer for Jasmine Trinca’s “Marcel!” features Alba Rohrwacher’s eccentric artist searching for her beloved lost dog Marcel, and in the process reconnecting with her neglected young daughter.The film, which is a Special Screenings title at the Cannes Film Festival this year, has secured distribution in France with Rezo Films. Paris-based sales agent Totem Films, which handled sales for hit movie “Compartment No.

Ed Meza @edmezavarWriter-director Tinna Hrafnsdóttir’s critically acclaimed Icelandic psychological-mystery drama “Quake” has sold to Juno Films for North America and the U.K. as well as to Njuta Films for Sweden.British-French production, distribution and sales company Alief is presenting the film at the upcoming Cannes Marché du Film.Anita Briem (“Beautiful Beings,” “Journey to the Center of the Earth”) stars as Saga, a single mother fighting to keep her young son while trying to piece together her life after losing her memory.