Korea Box Office: ‘The Boy and the Heron’ Takes Second Weekend Win

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Wellington Paranormal,” the series spinoff from 2014 breakout hit film “What We Do In the Shadows,” is launching an audio companion piece. It is produced by Frank Podcasts, a new New Zealand-based podcast network, headed by Mike Minogue and Tim Batt. The podcast will feature actors, writers, directors and more, delving into the making of the Jemaine Clement produced and Taika Waititi executive produced TV series, “Wellington Paranormal.” The show is hosted by Minogue (who played Officer Minogue in the series) and Karen O’Leary (Officer O’Leary), with Maaka Pohatu (Sarge) and Tom Sainsbury (Officer Parker) as recurring guests.

Post Malone has covered songs from The Proclaimers and Sublime with a local bar house band while performing in New Zealand.This past Sunday (November 19), the rapper – who currently touring Australia and New Zealand – made a special appearance at Doolan’s Irish Pub in Auckland, where he surprised patrons with covers The Proclaimers and Sublime.For his special performance, Post Malone covered The Proclaimers’ ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ and Sublime’s ‘What I Got’ with the house band at Doolan’s Irish Pub. See fan-filled footage of the covers below.I met posty last night in my bar Danny Doolans in Auckland, asked him if he could get on stage and he actually did it!!! Legend ❤️ @Post Malone #nz #aucklamd #DannyDoolans #postmalone ♬ original sound – Sydney Eady @Post Malone #auckland #dannydoolans #postmalone #500miles ♬ original sound – Jana The cover comes after Post Malone most recently performed a cover of Alice In Chains’ ‘Them Bones’ during a recent radio session on The Howard Stern Show last month.Speaking with Howard Stern during that same interview, the American rapper and singer remembered a backstage encounter with Taylor Swift, who revealed she was a fan of Posty’s ‘Better Now’ from his album ‘Beerbongs & Bentleys’.“We were just passing by and she was like, ‘Oh my God! Nice to see you.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The QCinema Project Market, the industry initiative that accompanies The Philippines’ QCinema International Film Festival, revealed its winners list on Tuesday delivering almost $500,000 of grants and in-kind support. The prizes followed a two-day networking and pitching event on Nov. 18 and 19 for 19 feature-length fiction film projects from Southeast Asia.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief BTS, the biggest act in K-pop and one of the world’s hottest contemporary music acts, will be forced into hiatus through 2024 and much of 2025 after it was confirmed Wednesday that four band members — RM, Jimin, V and Jung Kook — will imminently enlist in the Korean military. The four follow Jin, who enlisted in December last year, J-Hope (April) and Suga, who have already begun their mandatory military service. The news was announced by Big Hit Music via social media.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Korean star Jung Woo-sung (“A Moment to Remember”) will star opposite Shin Hyun-been (“Hospital Playlist”) in “Tell Me That You Love Me,” an original series for Genie TV. The show is a remake of the hit Japanese series of the same name that first aired at Tokyo Broadcasting Systems linear channel in Japan some 28 years ago in 1995. The new show will upload to Genie’s own streaming service on Nov. 27 and the same day in Japan on Disney+.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Veteran actor Ciaran Hinds and Odessa Young have joined Euphoria star Jacob Elordi in the cast of premium Australian miniseries “The Narrow Road to the Deep North.” Production is now under way. An adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel by Richard Flanaghan, the five-part series is love story set against the backdrop of World War II. Production is by Curio Pictures with Prime Video releasing the title in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Mystery-horror film “Five Nights at Freddy’s” landed on top of the South Korean cinema box office. But fellow new release title “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songs and Snakes” managed only a fourth placed start. “Five Nights” earned $1.78 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Sting, Jonas Brothers, Halsey and OneRepublic are among the headline acts set to perform at Lollapalooza India. The music festival is set for a second edition Jan.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Concrete Utopia,” South Korea’s Oscar contender, was Wednesday named best film at the country’s annual Grand Bell Awards. It also won prizes for best actor, best supporting actress, art direction, sound mixing and visual effects.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Korean content firms including CJ ENM and Webtoon are joining forces with Asian-focused streamer Rakuten Viki as it launches a “worldwide celebration of Korean drama” at the end of the month. The International K-Drama Day event on Nov.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A man in his 40s, who was a member of the association for victims of sexual abuse by the late Johnny Kitagawa, has died in Japan. While the police have not commented, reputable local media on Tuesday reported that it is a possible case of death by suicide. The unnamed man’s body was found in the mountains near Osaka in mid-October.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two independent management companies in the Asian music scene, MoFo Music and IAMAD, have merged to create a new music production and artist management group, MAD MoFo. The new entity will be led by Hong Kong-based Kelvin Avon and Sydney, Australia-based Philippe-Marc Anquetil. Both are both multi-award winning and multi-platinum selling international producers, songwriters and managers. At the same time, MAD MoFo has announced the launch of a Series A fundraising.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Marvels” topped the South Korean box office on its opening weekend, but failed to lift cinema activity out of its recent slump. “The Marvels” opened with $2.35 million between Friday and Sunday, and a market share of nearly 42%, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). Over its five-day opening run the film pulled in a total of $3.4 million. Those scores were enough to take top place from “The Boy and the Heron,” which had been number one for the two previous weekends, but not enough to increase cinemagoing in Korea.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief All three of Sony Group Corporation’s entertainment segments – film and TV, music and Games and network services – improved their profitability between July and September, the second quarter of the Japan and Hollywood conglomerate’s financial year. Group revenues increased by 8% in local currency terms to JPY2.83 trillion, compared with JPY2.75 trillion in the same quarter last year. But Sony’s financial services unit and its entertainment technology segment pulled down group sales and profitability. The group’s net after tax profits dropped a hefty 29% to JPY200 billion.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Taiwanese production companies DaMou Entertainment and KOKO Entertainment unveiled a starry local cast for “Fired Up,” their Taiwan remake of hit Korean series “Itaewon Class.” At an event held within the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) on Thursday, the two companies also confirmed plans for a second season of “The World Between Us,” a 2019 drama series that premiered on Taiwan’s Public Television Service and regional streamer Catchplay. “Fired Up” will star Mandarin-language pop star Eric Chou, Golden Horse Film Award nominee Angela Yuen, Shao Yu-wei, Huang Guan-zhi, Cosmos Lin, Ben Wu and Sean Lin in leading roles. The show is co-directed by kao Pin-chuan and Tseng Ying-ting, working from a script headed by Chien Li-ying (“Wave Makers”). “Itaewon Class” is a story about an ex-convict who sets up his own business after release from jail.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japanese entertainment conglomerate Kadokawa is seeking to double its international revenues through a strategy of diversification and localization. Taiwan is expected to be a key plank in the outreach, executives at the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) heard on Tuesday. “Currently 20% of Kadokawa’s revenues come from outside Japan. I want to get this figure to 40%,” said Natsuno Takeshi, CEO Kadokawa Corp. Kadokawa has its roots in publishing of comics and other fiction and also has deeply-established roots in film production and distribution.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Unscripted queer reality dating series “Boys Like Boys” is to air on Warner Bros. Discovery’s TLC channel in Taiwan in early 2024, making it the first local LGBTQ+ dating reality show to air on linear TV in the territory. The show is an original production by GagaOOLala, Asia’s out and proud LGBTQ+ streaming service, which is pitching an expanded array of queer content at the Taiwan Creative Contents Fest (TCCF) that launches Tuesday in Taipei. “Boys Like Boys” had its premiere at the Kaohsiung International Film Festival and is now available worldwide on GagaOOLala and WeTV in the Philippines and Thailand, where the ‘Boys Love’ genre has become highly popular.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two films from Japan, Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” and Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” won the top prizes at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards on Friday. Multiple other honors went to films from Korea and Kazakhstan. The 16th edition of the APSA Awards was held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia and recognized films from eight countries. “Perfect Days,” a gentle comedy drama about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo finding happiness in the everyday, premiered in Cannes and more recently was selected as Japan’s Oscar contender and as the opening title of the Tokyo International Film Festival.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Subscription video subscriptions in Taiwan increased by 315,000 in the July to September quarter, to reach 5.8 million, according toa new research report. Netflix and Disney+ were responsible for the bulk of the growth. The “Online Video in Taiwan” report from consultancy Media Partners Asia and its AMPD Research sister company showed premium VOD engagement and subscriptions were up 6% quarter on quarter.

Taylor Swift is the most translated artist in the world, according to a new study.The results were found as part of a recent study conducted by WordFinderX, which analysed data on 627,000 translations of 277,000 songs from more than 11,700 musical artists.The songs were ranked by the number of times that they had been translated from their original language, and artists were also ranked based on how many times their songs had been translated. Non-English-speaking artists were also ranked separately.Of the results, it was shown that Taylor Swift was the most translated artist globally, with fans translating 365 of Swift’s songs across 57 languages – the equivalent of nearly 5,000 translations in total.K-pop stars BTS came in second place due to their popularity and Korean lyrics, and Lana Del Rey and The Beatles came in third and fourth place respectively.Others on the list included Céline Dion, Julio Inglesias, Shakira and One Direction.