‘Fast X’ Starts Its Engines With $18M+ In China & Korea On Day One

Bridgerton star Simone Ashley and former One Direction singer Zayn Malik will appear in a new animated film together. The pair will star in 10 Lives alongside the likes of Living's Bill Nighy, comedian Mo Gilligan, Death on the Nile's Sophie Okonedo, and Ted Lasso star Jeremy Swift. The film, directed by Duck Duck Goose's Chris Jenkins, is about Beckett, a pampered and selfish cat who takes the lives he's been given for granted, as reported by Deadline.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday. Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor “Charlie Harper,” starring Emilia Jones from Oscar-winning film “Coda,” has been sold to multiple international territories. The film will be directed by Tom Dean and Mac Eldridge from a script written by Dean. Toby Wallace (“Babyteeth,” FX’s “Pistol”) will star opposite Jones. The film has been sold to Germany/Austria (Tobis), France (SND), Japan (Kinoshita), Australia/New Zealand (Roadshow), Spain (TriPictures), Scandinavia (SF Studios), Switzerland (Ascot Elite), Israel (Forum Film), South Africa (Empire), Latin America (Sun), Portugal (NOS), Greece (Odeon), Middle East (Front Row), Benelux (The Searchers), Baltics (ACME), and Eastern Europe (Unicorn).

Romance pic Charlie Harper, starring CODA actor Emilia Jones alongside Toby Wallace (Babyteeth), has inked a series of international deals out of last week’s Cannes Market.

EXCLUSIVE: Taost Entertainment, a London-based media production startup, has picked up Chinese distribution rights to the star-studded animated feature 10 Lives.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Family audiences turned out in force, propelling Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” to the top of the box office over the Memorial Day weekend. The film, a live-action remake of the 1988 animated favorite, earned a splashy $117.5 million over the four-day holiday. It ranks as the fifth largest Memorial Day debut — last year’s “Top Gun: Maverick” set a new record for the holiday with its $160.5 million launch. At one point over the weekend, it looked as if “The Little Mermaid” might even open north of $120 million, but ticket sales flagged slightly. For Disney, the film’s popularity is a testament to its strategy of digging deep into its vaults and rebooting animated titles as live action movies, something it has done successfully with the likes of “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.” Waiting out on the horizon: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, the Oscar-winning director of “Summer of Soul,” is helming a remake of “The Aristocats” for Disney.

Rotten Tomatoes. There’s a good chance that “Little Mermaid” can keep legging out even against Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” given the female-majority audience doesn’t have significant overlap with those films.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Fast X” predictably won a second weekend on top of the mainland China box office, driving its total past the $100 million mark. But the disappointing start for Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” was the bigger talking point. “Fast X” earned $17.6 million in China according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That was a 66% drop compared with its opening weekend, but still gave the film a $110 million cumulative after 12 days and has caused estimates to be further revised upwards. Ticketing agency Maoyan is now forecasting that the film will finish with RMB880 million ($126 million), having previously predicted RMB728 million ($104 million), and then RMB840 million.

castmates. During the final part of this season's tell-all that aired Sunday on TLC, Mahmoud and his brother, Ahmed, made a virtual appearance from Egypt and Mahmoud quickly displayed his hot temper.Mahmoud's relationship with his wife, Nicole, has been shaky this season due to her not wanting to conform to the more conservative Muslim culture that Mahmoud wants her to. But a surprising revelation during the season finale was that Nicole caught him having an inappropriate conversation online with a woman from China.

Refresh for latest…: Apart from big new opener The Little Mermaid, which we detailed here, this weekend was notable for propelling Universal’s Fast X past the $500M mark globally, and Disney/Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to over $730M worldwide.

Universal’s Fast & Furious franchise has reached a new milestone, spinning past $7B at the global box office. Getting there, it becomes the fifth series of films to the mark, doing so with 11 titles. It’s currently the No. 5 franchise of all time, and is tied with Warner Bros’ Wizarding World for the fewest number of movies to get to $7B in the Top 5.

The 10th instalment of the “Fast and Furious” franchise was off to the races this weekend, knocking “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” out of first place and easily claiming the No. 1 spot at the box office. “Fast X” earned $67.5 million in ticket sales from 4,046 North American theatres, according to estimates from Universal Pictures on Sunday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Fast & Furious 10” (aka “Fast X”) dominated the mainland China box office with a strong opening weekend and a revved up opening five days. Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway shows Fast X scored $51.1 million between Friday and Sunday, to comfortably top the Chinese box office, with a 58% market share. Unusually, the film opened on a Wednesday. Over five days, it accumulated $77.4 million.Imax reported that the film pulled in $8.4 million from China, accounting for 11 of the China market opening, from fewer than 1% of the screens in the market. The figures reflect the five-day score, not the conventional weekend.

The opening weekend box office results for Universal’s “Fast X” are mixed as the latest “Fast & Furious” film is performing like a franchise in decline in the U.S. but is still grossing quite well overseas.

Universal’s Fast X, in what was an early start for previews for the franchise at 2 p.m., sparked to $7.5 million in Thursday numbers. Forecasts see the Louis Leterrier-directed tenthquel at a $60 million-plus stateside frame this weekend, with a greater amount of gas abroad at $235 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Returning as an in-person event after cancelation last year, the Shanghai International Film Festival has set out an agenda with a clear focus on China. The festival (June 9-16) will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s economic outreach and development program. With a series of press conferences and film culture roundtables, the SIFF’s Belt and Road Film Week will “bring together old friends of the alliance from previous years and new friends made this year [..] and announce an action plan for the future.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief More than two million people turned out on Wednesday to watch “Fast X” in Chinese movie theaters, spending a combined $15.3 million on the film on its first day of release. That made the tenth film in the “Fast & Furious” franchise a clear winner at the Chinese box office in an unusual midweek release. And it put “Fast X” on course to be the biggest Hollywood film so far this year in the world’s second largest movie market. Provisional data from local data service Ent Group showed that the film also enjoyed $2.83 million from previews on Tuesday. That gives an estimated $18.2 million total at the end of its first official day of release.

ahead of the launch of her , while wearing an enviable, chin-grazing bob. Shorter than her past bob cuts, she proved she can work the trending style at any length.While it’s beloved in the UK, Bieber’s chic new hair aesthetic is really borrowed from the French.

Carys Zeta Douglas is taking Cannes by storm!

While it might seem that Fast X has run out of gas in the states, it’s totally turbo boasted overseas as the tenth installment in the Universal franchise is eyeing a an offshore start of $235M to 60M+ domestic. That will get Fast X to $295M worldwide, making it the third highest global start for a Fast & Furious movie after Fate of the Furious ($541.9M) and Furious 7 ($397.6M).