Vietnam Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor Sam Mercer, producer on several M. Night Shyamalan movies and former head of ILM, died Feb.

Sam Mercer, who produced seven M. Night Shyamalan films including The Sixth Sense, headed Lucasfilm‘s Industrial Light & Magic and was location manager on several classic 1980s pics, has died. He was 69.

Patty Jenkins is still working on the screenplay for Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. This is per her appearance on the TCM/Max podcast. Many assumed the project was dead and it’s not.

Robert Kennedy Jr. confirmed to The New York Times that NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura were on the top of his shortlist to serve as his running mate in his independent presidential bid.

David Mixner, the activist and political strategist who lobbied — and protested — political figures in the movement for LGBTQ equality, died on Monday. He was 77.

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.

Naman Ramachandran Taiwan-based anime distribution and licensing company Muse Communication has acquired Asian distribution rights for anime “Dan Da Dan,” it was revealed at Hong Kong rights market FilMart on Monday. Written and illustrated by Yukinobu Tatsu, Japanese manga series “Dan Da Dan” was serialized in Shueisha’s Shonen Jump+ app and website from 2021. The anime series based on it is due to bow in October.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Muhammad Ali will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2024, Variety has learned exclusively. Ali will be inducted during the Hall of Fame ceremony taking place on April 5 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He will be inducted by his widow, Lonnie Ali.

Vietnamese distributor and producer Mockingbird Pictures is making its debut as an international sales agent at Filmart with a slate of local horror, comedies and action films, headed by record-breaking horror hit Crimson Snout (Quy Cau).

EXCLUSIVE: Specialty distributor 3388 Films has acquired rights to Vietnamese smash Mai, and has set a March 22 theatrical release across North America and Europe. From director Tran Thanh, the romance drama is now the No. 1 movie of all time in Vietnam, having crossed 500B VND ($20M) locally this past week. 

NewJeans attended the 2024 Billboard Women in Music Awards to receive the ‘Group of the Year’ award, saying it was “something we really don’t take for granted”.This year’s Billboard Women in Music awards ceremony took place on the evening of March 6 at Los Angeles’ YouTube Theater, with NewJeans named Group of the Year at the ceremony, making them the first-ever K-pop group to have done so in the awards’ history.After receiving their trophy from country musician Lainey Wilson, Australian-Vietnamese member Hanni expressed in her acceptance speech how starstruck she was to be in the same room with artists the group look up to.“To be here today celebrating Women’s History Month and to participate in an awards show that’s overflowing with such amazing artists is so surreal and it’s hard to believe we’re in the same room as you all,” Hanni said. “I’d like to thank all the artists that are here because without your music, I don’t think we would have been able to grow up so inspired.

After a successful return as a physical event last year, Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (Filmart, March 11-14) is taking place again this year against a complicated backdrop, both in terms of market realities and the shifting geopolitics of the region. 

Room to Read, a global education nonprofit tackling illiteracy and gender inequality, announced a partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery for the premiere of , the first nonprofit-led animation and live-action film project to promote gender equality through the stories of young women around the world.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros. Discovery and Room to Read have partnered on “She Creates Change,” an animation and live-action film project to promote gender equality through the stories of young women around the world. Room to Read is a global education nonprofit aiming to creating a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Atlas Distribution Company, a U.S. indie distributor, has set Vietnamese-American co-production film “A Fragile Flower” on course for a theatrical release in the U.S. Produced by the duo Mai Thu Huyen and Jacqueline Thu Thao, the romantic musical drama, with a screenplay by Vietnamese singing sensation Nhat Ha, is set debut from Mar.

Blink-182‘s Tom DeLonge has written a new sci-fi novel, which will hit shelves this summer.The musician has teamed up with frequent collaborator AJ Hartley to co-write Trinity, a novel loosely based on a purported UFO event around a nuclear testing site.The book will be published on June 11 via his To the Stars Media company and distributed by Simon & Schuster.“This story takes place around a seminal UFO event that I believe happened,” DeLonge said. “Although the location may have been changed, the importance of what I believe transpired remains.

Saturday Night Live host Shane Gillis sported a mullet and a southern accent to play Ricky Monroe, an alum of Greenbow High School who graduated alongside Forrest Gump.

Lunar New Year is a key box office period in several Asian territories, but nowhere was it more hotly contested this year than in Vietnam, where several local, Japanese and Hollywood movies were slugging it over the week-long holidays (February 9-15).

Hill Harper left his hit ABC series The Good Doctor at the end of season six and now the show has revealed how they are handling his absence.

Hill Harper‘s exit from The Good Doctor was addressed in the Season 7 premiere of the ABC medical drama.

A woman who was "unceremoniously" dumped on her 50th birthday while on holiday is now helping other midlife singles find love and navigate the online dating world, often giving men tips such as not posting inappropriate photos or pictures of themselves in cycling shorts on their Tinder profiles.

The teaser trailer for HBO’s upcoming limited series The Sympathizer has debuted online!

Gisele Bundchen is celebrating New York Fashion Week with a star-studded party!

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor In the months since it has premiered at Cannes, “The Taste of Things,” a lushly romantic love letter to French cooking, has quickly been anointed one of the best food-focused movies ever made. The film, now playing in selected theaters, revolves around the romance between Juliette Binoche‘s Eugénie and wealthy gourmet Dodin Bouffant, played by Binoche’s former real-life partner Benoît Magimel.

Naman Ramachandran Singapore’s Momo Film Co has unveiled a six-film slate that includes projects from recent prize-winners at Cannes and Locarno. Momo is one of five outfits selected at the 2024 Berlinale Co-Production Market‘s company matching program. Fresh off two wins at Locarno 2023 for Nelson Yeo’s debut feature “Dreaming & Dying,” Momo is continuing its relationship with the Singaporean filmmaker for his sophomore feature “The Drought,” a dark comedy-horror film set in the time of a drought.

Fresh off a Super Bowl win, Travis Kelce is on his way to Hollywood.Or, at least, to Austin, Texas.The Kansas City Chiefs tight end, and famous boyfriend of pop star Taylor Swift, will make his executive-producing debut with the new indie “My Dead Friend Zoe,” which will have its world premiere at the South by Southwest fest in early March.The dramedy, directed by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman, and is about a veteran reuniting with her Vietnam-vet dad — while having conversations with her deceased best friend.Interestingly, the film was financed with the help of green energy tax credits through President Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. According to Variety, it’s the first film to do so.“Hollywood is risky, right? On a scale of one to 10, Hollywood, it is a 9.5.

The Dandy Warhols have shared their latest single, ‘I’d Like to Help You With Your Problem’, which features Slash on guitar. Check it out below.The song is set to be included on the band’s upcoming 12th studio album ‘Rockmaker’, which comes out on March 15 via Sunset Blvd.

Bob Edwards, a Peabody-winning National Radio Hall of Famer who anchored NPR’s Morning Edition for nearly a quarter-century before moving to satellite radio, died Saturday. He was 76. National Public Radio announced his death but did not provide details.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The CGI animated sequel to “Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness,” the hit adventure film based on the Dark Horse comics which sold around the world, has lured buyers ahead of the European Film Market. Titled “Chickenhare and the Very Very (Very) Old Groundhog,” the movie is budgeted at $23 million (a large budget by European production standards) and brings back the creative team behind the first film.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor World sales agency Square Eyes has boarded Vietnamese drama “Cu Li Never Cries,” which has its world premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival. Variety debuts the trailer below. The film is directed by Phạm Ngọc Lân, who wrote the screenplay with Nghiêm Quỳnh Trang.

Star Wars, but had to pass on the opportunity.During an appearance on Wednesday’s (January 17) edition of The Tonight Show, the two-time Oscar winner recalled how she was approached to play the iconic sci-fi character, which would later become a breakthrough role for the late Carrie Fisher.Foster had to turn down the part, however, due scheduling conflicts with the original Freaky Friday film.“I was [offered the role], but I had a conflict,” she told host Jimmy Fallon. “I was doing a Disney movie, and I just didn’t want to pull out of the Disney movie because I was already under contract, so I didn’t do it.

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group has preemptively acquired rights to The Women, a new book from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah, which is up for publication by St. Martin’s Press in February.

Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers is set in the last weeks of 1970 and, if attention is paid, you’ll see Da’Vine Joy Randolph pay homage to Isabel Sanford, particularly how the tv legend wore her hair when she played Louise “Weezy” Jefferson in the classic TV comedy The Jeffersons.

Attorney Leon Wildes, who stood next to John Lennon and Yoko Ono in court, in public and on TV during the early 1970s as the famous couple successfully fought unrelenting deportation attempts by the Nixon Administration, died Monday, January 8, at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital. He was 90.

John Lennon from being deported from the US in the 1970s, had died aged 90.Wildes died last Monday (January 8) at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, his family said. He had fallen ill after suffering a series of strokes.His name became known in the music world in 1972 when he took on the case of helping Lennon and Yoko Ono to extend their visas.In a statement, his son Michael Wildes said: “Dad felt he effectively lived the American Dream for a kid from Olyphant, PA and spent his life facilitating the same experience for scores more.

Robert Downey Jr. has defended the ‘blackface’ that his character uses in the 2008 film Tropic Thunder, saying it “railed against tropes that were not right”. The 2008 comedy film was directed by Ben Stiller and stars Downey Jr alongside Jack Black, Jay Baruchel and Brandon T.