City Beijing Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Strictly Come Dancing star Ellie Simmonds has admitted she’s nervous about being the first to be in the dance off. The Paralympic swimmer also opened up about fears over her height difference with Strictly pro Nikita Kuzmin and her hopes that the public will back her so she’s in with a shot of taking home the highly-coveted Glitterball trophy. Last night's launch episode saw all of this year's couples dance for the first time, but nobody will face the dance off or go home until next weekend.

Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade went on a double date for the premiere of his new documentary!

Strictly Come Dancing has burst back onto screens for its 20th series with Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman back at the helm with the judges back on the panel casting their expert eye. And many viewers of the BBC One dance contest will begin placing their bets in to see who will win the Glitterball this year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japan’s biggest film group Toho announced that it has taken a controlling stake in TIA (previously Toho Interactive Animation), a production company behind the “100 Nichikan Ikita Wani,” film and anime series “iii icecrin,” “iii icecrin2” “Ninja Collection” and “That Is the Bottleneck.” Originally known as I&A, the company was established in 2017 by ILCA and Anima. The name changed to TIA after Toho bought a nearly 35% from the two founders in 2020. Toho has now bought out Anima’s stake, giving it a 67.4% majority holding and cause to rename the company again, this time to Toho Animation Studio. Deal terms were not disclosed.

Ukraine's First Lady will attend Queen Elizabeth's funeral on behalf of her country. While President Volodymyr Zelensky will remain in his war-torn country as global leaders say a final farewell to the British monarch - who died on 8 September aged 96 - his wife Olena Zelenska will join dignitaries at the service on Monday (19. 09.

Chinese actor Li Yifeng, whose feature credits include The Pioneer, Hi, Mom and My People My Homeland, has been detained by police in Beijing for allegedly soliciting prostitutes on multiple occasions.

Executives from China Film Group were recently treated to a screening of footage from Disney/20th Century Studios’ Avatar: The Way Of Water, receiving a surprise greeting from filmmaker James Cameron in the process. China Daily reported the news which Deadline has confirmed.

EXCLUSIVE: Kelly Campbell has been president of Peacock for less than a year, but she has already steered the 2-year-old outlet through a series of challenges as NBCUniversal looks to make its mark in the streaming race.

Marta Balaga Five Nordic features are nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize. The prestigious recognition, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, was first awarded to Aki Kaurismäki’s “The Man Without a Past.”Hlynur Pálmason’s “Godland,” Teemu Nikki’s “The Blind Man Who Did Not Want to See Titanic,” “Lamb” by Valdimar Jóhannson, Joachim Trier’s Oscar-nominated “The Worst Person in the World” and “Clara Sola,” directed by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, will all vie for the award.It is billed as a prize that celebrates “a unique filmmaking vision, deeply rooted in Nordic culture” and comes with a sum of DKK 300,000 ($40,000), shared equally between the director, screenwriter and producer.

BreAnna Bell Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist Chloe Kim has signed with Buchwald for entertainment agency representation as she hopes to roll her sports success into a promising acting career.Kim cemented herself as a force at the 2022 Beijing Olympics when she became the first woman in history to win back-to-back Olympic Gold Medals in halfpipe snowboarding.The snowboarding champion returned to the sport in January 2021 after focusing on her education at Princeton University for the 2019-20 season. Her comeback spawned a win in all four women’s superpipe events in the 2020-21 season including her sixth X Games gold medal and her second World Championship.

Netflix is collaborating with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for “Redeem Team”, an upcoming documentary about the 2008 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team’s quest for gold at the Beijing Summer Olympic Games.

Netflix has partnered with the International Olympic Committee for The Redeem Team—a new documentary looking at the U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball team’s iconic victory of 2008, which will be released globally on the streamer on October 7th.

Angelique Jackson NBA legends LeBron James and Dwyane Wade have teamed up once more — this time as executive producers and subjects of the new documentary “The Redeem Team,” which celebrates the victorious 2008 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball team.Directed by Jon Weinbach (“The Last Dance”), the documentary marks the first collaboration between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Netflix, as the project uses “unprecedented Olympic footage and behind-the-scenes material” to chronicle Team USA’s quest for Olympic gold at the 2008 games in Beijing.According to the documentary’s official logline, “The Redeem Team” tells the story of the 2008 squad’s journey as they followed the previous team’s shocking performance four years earlier in Athens, where they took home a bronze medal after winning gold in the previous three straight Olympic Games.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media WriterEarlier this year, a Chinese VFX and animation studio revealed that it had been victimized by two American swindlers who had used the company’s name to defraud investors out of $234 million.In a filing on Thursday, the company alleged that the two men — Remington Chase and Kevin Robl — are still trying to lure investors, even after the scam was exposed. The company, Base, filed for an injunction that would block the men from using its name to solicit further investments.The whereabouts of Robl and Chase remain uncertain.

A Chinese court has rejected an appeal by a young woman who alleged sexual harassment against a popular male TV host in what has been referred to as a landmark case. Foreign media outfits reporting locally have called the decision a blow to China’s #MeToo movement.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe first feature by Berlin-based visual artist and filmmaker Ann Oren, which is titled “Piaffe,” is launching on Aug. 11 from the Locarno Film Festival’s Piazza Grande.Described by the director as “a love letter to the less recognized magicians of cinema and a playful celebration of otherness,” this German film is produced by Kristof Gerega, Sophie Ahrens and Fabian Altenried of Berlin-based Schuldenberg Films.Beijing-based Rediance, as previously announced, has taken international sales.“When her sibling Zara suffers a nervous breakdown, the introvert Eva is forced to take on Zara’s job as a foley artist.

China has set an August 19 release date for Universal/Illumination’s Minions: The Rise Of Gru. This will be the first major tentpole from Hollywood to hit the market since Universal’s own Jurassic World Dominion which has grossed $157.4M there through Sunday and during an extended nine-week run; it is the biggest studio import of 2022.

Paralympic swimmer Ellie Simmonds OBE has signed up to Strictly Come Dancing 2022.The gold-medal winning athlete is the sixth celebrity contestant to be announced. She'll hit the dance floor with Loose Women star Kaye Adams and Coronation Street actress Kym Marsh.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterBeverly Chase has been promoted to vice president of current programming and development for Vice News and Vice World News, Variety has learned exclusively.Chase was previously the executive producer of long form for Vice News. In her new role, Chase will continue to serve as as executive producer and showrunner of “Vice” on Showtime.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterPeacock ended the second quarter of the year with 13 million paid subscribers, Comcast revealed along with its Q1 earnings results Thursday.That total is flat with the 13 milion paid subscribers Comcast reported for the streamer in Q1, which has both free, ad-supported and paid, ad-free tiers. When Comcast chairman-CEO Brian Roberts revealed that data back on April 28, also saying Peacock had 28 million monthly active accounts, he warned the company did not anticipate this dramatic level of growth quarter-to-quarter for Peacock becoming the norm, as the four million paid subscriber additions it boasted in Q1 were largely attributed to Peacock streaming both Super Bowl LVI and the Beijing Winter Olympics during the quarter.

On to the next. Months after competing in the Winter Olympics in Beijing, Shaun White gave Us Weekly an exclusive update on his life, which, luckily for him, still includes snowboarding, skateboarding and traveling around the world with the love of his life — Nina Dobrev.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media“Torched” will return for a second season with Molly Bloom, the former professional skier turned poker impresario, coming back as host of the podcast. The show will once again pull back the curtain on some of the most controversial Olympic stories of all time, as well as provide deep dives into other sports yarns.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorThe CEO of TikTok tried to reassure U.S. lawmakers — who have renewed concerns over its sharing of U.S. user data with employees in China — that the video app company is taking steps to restrict that access to only a “narrow” slice of data.TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew sent a letter dated June 30 to nine GOP senators in response to their inquiry this week “demanding answers on TikTok’s backdoor data access for Beijing,” a reference to China’s communist regime.

The Olympic Channel, which NBCUniversal launched five years ago as a destination for its Olympic programming, is going dark on September 30.

“TikTok is not just another video app. That’s the sheep’s clothing.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorTikTok, the massively popular short-form video app, is in the crosshairs of American policymakers again over its ownership by Chinese internet giant ByteDance.Brendan Carr, a Republican commissioner of the FCC, posted a letter to Apple and Google on Twitter, urging the tech giants to remove TikTok from their respective app stores — calling it “an unacceptable national security risk.”“TikTok is not just another video app. That’s the sheep’s clothing,” Carr, who was appointed to the FCC in 2017 by Donald Trump, said in the tweet Tuesday accompanying the letter.

After temporarily shuttering amid a surge in Covid cases last March, China’s Shanghai Disneyland will reopen to the public this week, management at Shanghai Disney Resort said today. Ticket sales and annual pass reservations resume from tomorrow and the park will then return to operations on Thursday, June 30. Shanghai ended its strict lockdown earlier this month.

Nina Dobrev and Shaun White know the perks of a beach getaway. The couple shared some fun photos of their time in The Maldives, having fun in their bathing suits and enjoying their vacation amongst friends.Nina Dobrev gushes over boyfriend Shaun White ahead of his fifth Winter OlympicsNina Dobrev and Shaun White make stunning red carpet debut at her ex-boyfriend’s premiereA post shared by Nina Dobrev (@nina)The photos show Dobrev and White smiling at the camera, with White carrying her in his arms. Different photos in the post show the two enjoying the sun and the beach, with Dobrev lying on a yellow puff, swimming in the beach with a friend, and making the best of their vacation.A second post shows Dobrev enjoying more of the beach, this time while wearing a red bathing suit, eating a salad, and posing with White atop a jet ski.A post shared by Nina Dobrev (@nina)This year has been a big one for Shaun White, who retired as a snowboarder and skateboarder.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Universal Beijing Resort will begin to restart operations from Saturday (June 25, 2022) after being closed for nearly two months due to COVID. The resort, which includes a theme park, two hotels and a Citywalk retail-entertainment area, closed on May 1 as COVID cases resurfaced in the Chinese capital after months of abeyance. Plans to reopen from June 15 were previously announced, but these were scrapped when the COVID wave flared up again.

EXCLUSIVE: Danielle Deadwyler (Till) has signed on to star alongside Aldis Hodge and his brother Edwin Hodge in the sci-fi thriller Parallel, from director Kourosh Ahari (IFC Films’ The Night), which has entered production in Vancouver.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorSorry, Comcast Xfinity customers: Your free access to the Peacock Premium streaming service is going to come to an end.Jeff Shell, CEO of NBCUniversal, said that making Peacock available to Comcast cable and broadband customers for no extra charge helped the fledgling streamer achieve traction after it launched in mid-2020, speaking Tuesday at the Credit Suisse 24th Annual Communications Conference. However, “At some point we’ll roll that to paid,” Shell said.Currently, Comcast’s Xfinity X1 and Flex customers are eligible to get Peacock Premium with ads for no additional cost; that’s normally priced at $4.99/month.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefA powerfully impressive opening by “Jurassic World Dominion” and a partial reopening of cinemas gave China its biggest box office weekend in more than three months. The dinosaur franchise movie earned $53 million (RMB355 million) in three days in China, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. The film chewed off a massive 88% share of the total weekend market.

Content warning: This article discusses allegations of sexual assault.Kris Wu is to be sentenced over charges of rape and “group licentiousness”, it has been reported, with a secret trial said to have been held in Beijing on Friday (June 10).According to the South China Morning Post, word of the trial was kept hush out of respect for the alleged victim’s safety. It comes 10 months after Wu was formally arrested on suspicion of rape.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese-Canadian superstar Kris Wu is to be sentenced for rape after a secret trial in Beijing on Friday, Hong Kong media reports. He risks spending between three and ten years in jail.Wu was arrested and formally charged in August last year after allegations were made in late July by Du Meizhu, 18, a beauty industry influencer. The woman used social media to accuse the musician and actor of date-raping her while she was 17 and a time when she was drunk.

Refresh for latest…: Universal/Amblin Entertainment’s Jurassic World Dominion is putting its dino-print out in an additional 57 overseas markets this weekend after stomping into 15 early hubs last session. Through Thursday, the Colin Trevorrow-directed threequel has grossed $95.1M at the international box office. When including Friday’s China start, that rises to $110.4M.

SM Entertainment has announced the launch of a new global audition programme in search of new members for boyband NCT.Today (June 10), the South Korean entertainment company announced the forthcoming launch of the ‘Welcome to the NeoCiTy’ audition programme, which will search for new NCT members. It dropped alongside a teaser featuring snippets from various NCT music videos.According to the official application form, SM Entertainment looks set to hold in-person auditions in a total of 14 cities around the world, including Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Seoul, Ho Chi Minh, Bangkok, Jakarta, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Beijing, Osaka, Fukuoka and Tokyo.SM Entertainment is currently looking for male applicants born between 2001 and 2008, in all three categories of vocals, rap and dance.