Endeavor Takes Outright Control of On Location and Endeavor China

a new lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice is seeking to compel former hotel magnate and ex-Republican Party finance chair Steve Wynn to register as a foreign agent.The move comes in response to what DoJ says is his work on behalf of the government of China in 2017, when Wynn repeatedly lobbied Donald Trump to deport a Chinese businessman seeking asylum in the United States.The lawsuit does not identify who the businessman was, but according to The New York Times, they are likely referring to Guo Wengui, an outspoken critic of corruption in the Chinese government.

India is the country of honor at the Cannes Film Market and consequently a massive contingent from the country is descending upon the Croisette. Variety understands that some 400 attendees are winging their way from India, and that French embassies across the country were working at capacity to issue visas.That stands in contrast with the attendance from other parts of Asia, further East.

The dinosaurs are ready to stomp into China with a June 10 date confirmed for Universal’s Jurassic World Dominion. This will be in step with the North American release — a rarity of late — after international rollout begins a few days prior. Universal confirmed the China release date on its official Weibo account with a video from stars Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt. Check out some new posters below.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefHong Kong-based sales firm Golden Network has picked up international rights to Jackie Chan’s upcoming film “Ride On.”The feature has recently wrapped production and is scheduled to be released on Dec. 31 in time for what is normally a peak cinemagoing period in China and elsewhere.Asian films are currently struggling to achieve pre-sales in international markets, but “Ride On” could be an exception.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe mainland China box office remained moribund over the latest weekend, lacking direction or new releases and achieving nationwide revenue of just $11.4 million.The country is continuing to suffer from clusters of COVID infections that have caused mass lockdowns in some cities and the temporary closure of many cinemas. Even as there is now talk of easing restrictions in Shanghai, which had been locked down for five weeks, there is the prospect of new restrictions in capital city Beijing. The government has also imposed a blanket ban on all but essential overseas travel.U.S.

Everything Everywhere All At Once.The martial arts legend was originally envisioned by directors and writers Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan as playing the movie’s lead role. However, when he said he was unavailable, they rewrote the part for Yeoh.“Jackie actually texted me,” she told the Guardian about his response to the film.

Jason Momoa is apologizing after taking pictures and videos during a recent trip to the Sistine Chapel. Earlier this week, the "Aquaman" star took to Instagram to share pictures he took of himself admiring the artwork inside the Apostolic Palace.The only problem is photography is off-limits, due to the fact the flash can be harmful to the artwork.

Rolling Stone, in the early days of his presidency, Trump repeatedly asked his national security aides if China had a weapon that could create large, man-made hurricanes, and was using it to deliberately target the United States. According to one Trump official, “It was almost too stupid for words” — and Meyers largely agreed.“This was at the beginning of his presidency, and somehow his presidency still had a middle and an end,” Meyers marveled.But what hit Meyers the most wasn’t the idea of the hurricane gun itself; it was that Trump apparently took that as a forgone conclusion and had a series of steps he wanted to take in response.

With Marvel’s global juggernaut Doctor Strange missing in action in China, Disney CEO Bob Chapek called the situation there “very fluid and very complicated, both from a business standpoint and from a political standpoint.”

EXCLUSIVE: Nat Geo is developing a new season of explorer format Lost Cities With Albert Lin, with production switching from UK producer Blakeway Productions to The Tinder Swindler indie Raw TV.

Jennie Punter Hot Docs has wrapped its 11-day hybrid edition, handing out three more cash prizes, announcing audience top picks, and tipping the hat to the 225 films from 63 countries that screened during the festival.The animated documentary “Eternal Spring,” by Jason Loftus, won the Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary, which comes with Cdn. $25,000 cash, and also claimed the top spot in the overall audience poll of cinemagoers and online doc-watchers.“Eternal Spring,” which had its North American premiere at Hot Docs and has racked up other awards this year at European festivals, mixes 3D and new live footage to trace the story of comic-book illustrator Daxiong (“Justice League,” “Star Wars”), a Falun Gong practitioner, who fled China after police began cracking down on members of the outlawed spiritual group.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefCinema box office in China fell back to the lower depths over the weekend, with just $8.9 million of revenue across a country of 1.3 billion inhabitants.Business continues to be badly hit by COVID-related closures as the disease shows signs of spread around the country, while slowly diminishing in Shanghai where there was a full lockdown that lasted many weeks.Business appeared to spike upwards a week earlier, driven by the May Day holiday. But Chinese state media reports that the Sunday to Wednesday May day period was down 82% compared with last year.The latest weekend box office total (Friday to Sunday) was the second lowest this year.

Grindr has been for sale to the highest bidder for years, allowing purchasers to micro-target them for ad purposes, while making available possibly intimate details of their movements.Those “precise movements,” The Wall Street Journal reports, “were collected from a digital advertising network and made available for sale,” since at least 2017. Grindr says it stopped the flow of the location data to advertising networks two years ago.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTheatrical box office in mainland China enjoyed a weekend bounce over the May Day holiday and a new market leader, despite a shortage of fresh titles and mounting cinema closures.Romantic comedy “Stay With Me” was the top-scoring new release title with $8.4 million (RMB55.4 million), according to data from Artisan Gateway, a consultancy and research firm. The film about long distance relationships, distributed by Enlight Pictures, deposed “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” which had held the top spot for three previous weekends. U.S.