FilMart Seminar Tackles AI and Its Impact on Copyright Law and Intellectual Property: ‘It Will Influence Our Whole Industry’

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Following the buzzy Netflix debut of “3 Body Problem” this past weekend, the sci-fi series off of which the show is based, “Remembrance of Earth’s Past,” in addition to a title frequently mentioned throughout the first season, “Silent Spring,” are now bestsellers on Amazon.

Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4 had a rock ‘em sock ‘em weekend at the international box office, adding $55.3M from 69 markets for a $135M overseas running cume, and $268.2M global (there are several key markets still to release, including France, Australia, the UK and Korea). 

EXO singer D.O. – real name Doh Kyung-soo – has announced his upcoming 2024 ‘Bloom’ fan concert tour of Asia.Today (March 25), EXO’s D.O.

Ashleigh Butler and her pooch Pudsey created television history by being the first-ever dog act to win Britain's Got Talent, making Simon Cowell's dream come true.The dynamic twosome won audiences over on the sixth season of the talent show back in 2012 when Pudsey, a fluffy crossbreed of Border Collie, Bichon Frise, and Chinese Crested dazzled the judges with his tricks. Alesha Dixon was overwhelmed at the time, stating: "I can't cope, this moment is too much. You're showing people what dogs can do when they have good homes and are loved.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “3 Body Problem” production designer Deborah Riley is no stranger to creating epic environments — she won four consecutive Emmys for her work on “Game of Thrones.” Netflix’s new series reunites Riley with creators David Benioff and D.B Weiss. “That show was vast insofar as cold and hot environments and in its scope and scale, but I had no idea what the term meant until ‘3 Body Problem,’” Riley says, comparing the two shows. Adapted from the Chinese science-fiction saga by Cixin Liu, the series opens with the Cultural Revolution.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Thailand’s Nation Group news media conglomerate is investing in a forthcoming feature film “Nak Ruk Mak Makk Mak,” the company said. The film is a romantic comedy inspired by Thai ghost tale “Mae Nak Phra Khanong.” Buoyed by a string of recent successes and a government initiative to bolster national soft power and the creative industries, Thai film is attracting new investors.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Boy and the Heron,” the Oscar-winning animated feature film by iconic Japanese director Miyazaki Hayao, is finally to be given a release in cinemas in mainland China. The picture is scheduled to release in China on April 3, 2024, according to Alibaba Pictures. Tickets are already available on booking sites such as Maoyan and Alibaba’s Taopiaopiao.

With a solid offshore hold, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is closing in on $500M globally. The overseas weekend brought in $51.2M across 73 markets, a 40% drop versus last session (-37% excluding China). The international box office cume through Sunday is $289.4M, and worldwide the running total is $494.7M. The latter figure means the film has already surpassed Villeneuve’s 2021 Dune worldwide.

Faye Bradley Actor Louis Koo is a household name in Hong Kong but off-screen, he’s an influential entertainment industry investor, producer and entrepreneur. Rising to prominence during the “golden age” of Hong Kong cinema, Koo built a respected career over the decades but less flashy are his businesses and investments. One Cool Group is one such revenue stream.

We’re back again, Insiders. Jesse Whittock with you this week, as Netflix showcased its latest wares, Hong Kong welcomed the entertainment world and Argentinian film was plunged into crisis. Here we go. Sign up to the newsletter here. 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Memento International has closed a raft of deals on “Fremont,” a critically acclaimed film starring Anaita Wali Zada, an Afghan refugee and first-time actor, and featuring “The Bear” actor Jeremy Allen White. Directed by BAFTA-nominated Iranian-born director Babak Jalali, the black-and-white movie tells the story of Donya, a young woman working at a Chinese fortune cookie factory in the San Francisco bay. Formerly a translator for the U.S.

Naman Ramachandran Korean action drama “A Shop For Killers” has become the most viewed local original on Disney+ in the Asia Pacific region (Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines) so far in 2024, the streamer has revealed. Set in contemporary Korea, the eight-part series follows college student Jeong Jian who dives for cover in her childhood home after a series of highly skilled assassins come after her.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Escaping Man,” a Chinese drama feature about a man dragged into a kidnap plot, heads the FilMart slate of Hong Kong-based sales agency Autumn Sun Company. The protagonist is a man who spent 20 years in jail after being falsely accused of rape. After his release, he intends to confront the woman, but instead falls for her again — to the point that she is able to manipulate him into kidnapping the child for which she is the nanny.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Thailand is poised to get serious about its commitment to the film industry, and plans to launch a major new body, the Thailand Creative Culture Agency, with a budget of THB7 billion ($200 million). Long a destination for Hollywood, China and India productions, and currently playing host to the lensing of Season 3 of “The White Lotus,” Thailand has many of the elements that could contribute to building a major film industry. These include diverse locations, skilled crews, studio facilities and a location production, or incentive, scheme.

“We don’t need a lot of content, we just need lots of really good content,” Kelvin Yau, President of Asia Pacific and Marketing iQIYI, concluded when quizzed on his company’s editorial strategy during a keynote session on streaming this morning at Filmart in Hong Kong.

Faye Bradley Hong Kong’s One Cool Film group has announced five new movies, revealed through exclusive teasers and posters on the opening day of FilMart. Upcoming films include “Love Lies,” starring Sandra Ng and M.C. Cheung Tinfu; “The Trier of Fact,” directed by Calvin Tong and featuring Louis Koo and Eddie Peng; “The Way We Talk,” produced, written and directed by Adam Wong, with Neo Yau, Chung Suet Ying and Ng Tsz Ho Marco in leading roles; “Good Game,” helmed by Dickson Leung, written by Lily He Xin and Sheng Ling Xiu Zhong, and starring Andrew Lam, Will Or and Yanny Chan; and “Behind the Shadows,” produced by Soi Cheang, directed by Jonathan Li and Chou Man Yu, and starring Koo, Chrissie Chou and Liu Kuan Ting.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Cora Yim and Benjamin Lin, both established indie producers of Chinese-language content, have joined forces to launch S11 Partners. It is partially backed by Medialink Group, an IP, distribution and brand licensing mini-conglomerate that is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The pair, who previously worked on TV series “Taiwan Crime Stories,” are launching their venture at FilMart in Hong Kong with a slate of three feature films in development.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Film projects to be produced by Andrew Lau (“Infernal Affairs,” “Initial D”) and Han Sanping, the former head of China Film Corp., are among the new in-development titles that grace the FilMart slate of Hong Kong studio Media Asia. The Peter Lam-controlled studio is also poised, at an event within FilMart on Monday, to detail its new alliance with China’s Alibaba Pictures Group. Lau is producing “Behind the Scene,” a book-to-film adaptation to be directed by Lee Kwong-yiu (“Insanity”) in which four friends uncover a meticulously planned murder that is carefully disguised as a kidnapping. Suspicions fall on a bank president who is involved in counterfeiting. Han is aiming to produce “Fading Tracks,” another crime title that is also adapted from a novel.

Naman Ramachandran Indian sales outfit Indywood Distribution Network has sold Rupesh Paul’s “Kamasutra – The Revenge” wide ahead of Hong Kong’s film rights market FilMart. Starring Sherlyn Chopra, Milind Gunaji and Gajendra Chauhan, and produced by San2Creations, the film follows two princesses – one who is robbed of her dreams when forced to accept a middle-aged king as her husband, and another thirsty for revenge. Indywood has sold the film to Twin (Japan, all rights); A2 Filmes (Latin America TV/VOD); Filmbridge (Mongolia, all rights); Pioneer Film (Philippines, all rights) and RFT Films (U.K./Ireland, theatrical).

Taylor Swift’s concerts without tickets.The incidents took place last Monday (February 26), during the third of the pop icon’s six sold-out shows in the South East Asian city-state.According to reports by outlets including The Independent and BBC News, one man allegedly distracted security staff by talking to them, while another held onto a turnstile to let three fans in.A third man who was arrested is under investigation and has yet to be charged, Singapore police said in a statement on Tuesday (March 5).Singapore has some of the strictest laws in the world, and anyone convicted of cheating faces a sentence of up to three years in jail.The shows, held as part of Swift’s mammoth ‘Eras’ tour, were in particularly high demand when the pop icon visited Singapore, as they marked the only stop in the region. Tickets sold out months before the live shows took place.According to the various outlets, one of the three men that the group snuck into the show was Chinese influencer Yang Junhao, who alleged that he unknowingly bought fake tickets.“This is me after being told I bought fake tickets, and was brought out [of the concert] to be interrogated by the police,” he reportedly told his followers in a video posted to Douyin, China’s version of TikTok (via BBC).