‘King of filth’ John Waters joins cast of ‘Mrs. Maisel’

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese media group CMC Inc. is being readied for a share listing in Hong Kong.

EXCLUSIVE: Billions and Mozart in the Jungle actor Daniel Breaker has joined the cast of Tina Fey and Meredith Scardino’s Girls5eva.

EXCLUSIVE:  Janina Gavankar has joined Eli Roth’s feature take of the Gearbox and 2K video game Borderlands at Lionsgate.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefMainland China youth drama “The Day is Over” was named the best Chinese-language film in the Firebird Young Cinema competition at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTheatrical box office in Hong Kong was down by only 4% over the four-day Easter holidays, compared with the same period in 2019, the last pre-COVID year. The score was achieved despite mandatory seating restrictions still in place.Data published Wednesday by Hong Kong Box Office Limited, showed gross revenues of HK$28.4 million ($3.64 million) between April 2-5, 2021.

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy-nominated actor and Home and Family co-host Cameron Mathison is returning to the world of daytime soaps, joining the cast of ABC’s long-running daytime drama series General Hospital.

For his Oscar-nominated short documentary Do Not Split, director Anders Hammer spent a year in Hong Kong’s streets, capturing the drama and chaos as China cracked down on pro-democracy protests. The work came with inherent danger.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefNorwegian director Anders Hammer did not set out to make another war film when he traveled to Hong Kong in 2019 to document the political protests that had brought an estimated two million people to the streets of self-proclaimed Asia’s World City.Hammer has previously chronicled real, hot war situations in Kabul and Iraq. There, bullets and rockets were flying daily, and more lives were in imminent danger.

Rachel Brosnahan chills out with John Waters on a park bench while filming new scenes for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in New York City on Wednesday afternoon (March 31).

EXCLUSIVE: Four-time Emmy winner Michael Learned is joining Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the limited series about the serial killer co-created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan that was greenlighted by Netflix last fall. She joins a cast that is further ramping up, with Murphy regular Evan Peters now aboard as Dahmer and Richard Jenkins and Penelope Ann Miller set as his parents.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefJohn Sudworth, China correspondent for the BBC has left the Chinese mainland and relocated to Taiwan. His move follows mounting East-West tension over Xinjiang and Hong Kong and accusations that the BBC in particular has defamed China.Sudworth’s move was announced Wednesday by the BBC in a Twitter message.

Vivienne Chow Dedicating her time and energy to strategizing ticket purchases for a young idol was never part of Chung Ling’s life plans. This 40-something-year-old working mother says she gave up on Hong Kong’s once huge Cantonese-language pop scene, a decade ago.

Nate Mann is set to join the ensemble cast for Apple Studios’ Masters of the Air, from Playtone and Amblin Television. Austin Butler, Anthony Boyle and Callum Turner are already on board to star.

Derek Tsang's youth drama Better Days, nominated this year for the best international film Oscar, has given Hong Kong its first shot at Academy Awards glory since Farewell My Concubine got the nod in 1993. But in a mysterious move, it appears that the Oscars ceremony is set to go unaired in Hong Kong for the first time in over 50 years.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterJohn Waters has joined the cast of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Season 4 at Amazon, Variety has learned exclusively.Waters will be appear in a guest starring role in the fourth season of the critically-acclaimed series, with the exact nature of the character he is playing being kept under wraps.

Outlander star Graham McTavish is set to join yet another popular fantasy television show. The Scottish actor, who has just finished on the first season of travel show Men in Kilts with fellow star Sam Heughan, has just been announced as one of the new cast members for the second series of Netflix hit The Witcher.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefJason Kothari, Hong Kong-born entrepreneur and film producer who was an executive producer on Vin Diesel-starring  “Bloodshot,” has acquired all rights to The Silent Flute, the spiritual martial arts project co-written by martial arts icon Bruce Lee in 1970.