Netflix to Air ‘Trillion Game,’ Japanese Drama Series From TBS (EXCLUSIVE)

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.

EXCLUSIVE: Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is teaming up with Jorge Granier and Chris Albrecht of Rubicon Global Media to develop and co-produce the Spanish and English-language crime drama, Prey Before You Eat (w/t).

Christopher Vourlias HBO Max has acquired Central and Eastern Europe rights to “I Know Your Soul,” the crime drama series by Oscar-nominated Bosnian filmmaker Jasmila Žbanić (“Quo Vadis, Aida?”). The show, which world premiered at the Venice Film Festival, is currently playing as part of the Agora Series TV strand of the Thessaloniki Film Festival. Also included in the deal, which was brokered by Munich-based production and distribution outfit Beta Film, is the Serbian thriller “Children of Evil,” based on the best-selling novel by Miodrag Majić.

Studio Lambert has introduced the world to Gogglebox, Race Across the World and The Circle but the indie has faced its greatest test in Netflix‘s Squid Game: The Challenge, and the road has been a bit of a bumpy one.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has laid off a handful of executives in its drama and overall deals divisions.

Ava DuVernay‘s TV follow-up to her film “Origin” isn’t happening anymore. Deadline reports that the director’s romantic drama series for Starz with Joshua Jackson and Lauren Ridloff will fold as DuVernay’s overall deal with Warner Bros.

Ava DuVernay‘s romantic drama series, which landed a three-year script-to-series commitment in May 2022, is not moving forward at Starz, Deadline has confirmed.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Godzilla Minus One,” the biggest picture to date in the Japanese monster movie franchise and the Wednesday night closing gala title at the Tokyo International Film Festival, is set for pan-European release at the beginning of December. Rights were acquired for 38 territories (excluding the U.K., Ireland and German-speaking territories) by theatrical-only specialist distributor Piece of Magic Entertainment from Toho, the Japanese studio that controls the ‘kaiju’ franchise and distributes the picture in Japan from Nov.

In the 26th episode of Deadline Strike Talk — which for below the liners signifies half a year without a paycheck that hasn’t come from Uber fares or waiting tables — host Billy Ray hits on a zeitgeist theme that gets voiced a lot by people who just feel that the business isn’t as remotely as exciting or near as much fun as it was before the folly that signatories put themselves into by chasing Netflix as it became the preeminent streamer. The result has put just about every other streamer pursuit in a position of being money losers that have strained the economics, and accelerated the demise of those conglomerates’ traditional networks, and so many other things.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Top Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi is in post-production of “Le Chemin du Serpent,” a French-language adaptation of his own 1998 film “The Serpent’s Path.” The story sees a mysterious woman team up with a man whose daughter was killed and who is now seeking revenge. Together they kidnap members of an organization and torture them to find out what really happened. With Damien Bonnard (“Asteroid City,” “Les Miserables”) and Shibasaki Ko (“47 Ronin,” “Battle Royale”) in the leading roles, the picture is the anchor title of the TIFFCOM sales slate of major Japanese studio Kadokawa. Production is by Kadokawa and Jean-Luc Ormieres’ Cinefrance Studios.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Vietnam-based sales agent Skyline Media has closed multi-territory deals for two of its current titles “The Soul Reaper” and “Vietnamese Horror Story.” The deals follow Skyline’s recent trip to Busan’s ACFM and come ahead of its participation as exhibitor at a string of further final quarter sales events – Tokyo’s TIFFCOM, Santa Monica’s American Film Market and Taipei’s Taiwan Creative Content Fest. Folk horror film “The Soul Reaper,” currently in the final stages of post-production, was licensed to GaragePlay for Taiwan and to Westec Media Limited (WML) for Laos, Cambodia and nine other Southeast Asian territories. The film, adapted from Thao Trang’s best-selling horror novel “Lunar New Year in Hell Village” (aka “Tet O Lang Dia Nguc”), is set to be released in Vietnam cinemas on 08 December. GaragePlay is one of Taiwan’s leading distributors, and recently handles releases of “Suzume,” “John Wick: Chapter 4” and “Someday or One Day.” WML is the biggest content distributor in Cambodia and has distributed more than 1,000 titles theatrically since its establishment.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japanese drama film “Mountain Woman,” which was one of the standouts titles at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, is to be represented for global sales by EST N8. Inspired by “The Legends of Tono,” which is Japanese folklore from the Tohoku region, the film depicts a small Japanese village overrun by famine. The burden falls upon Rin, a woman whose connections with the spirit and natural worlds allow her to rise amidst familial conflicts.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A TIFFCOM seminar on Thursday demonstrated both a sense of incredulity that Japanese animation “Suzume” could have enjoyed such wide international success and conveyed the depth of passionate behind-the-scenes strategizing that made it happen. Since its release in Japan at the end of 2022 and international expansion in spring of 2023, following a Berlin festival competition slot, “Suzume,” a fantasy drama about a girl who helps avert natural disasters, sold more than 47 million tickets worldwide. “And most of those people don’t even speak Japanese,” said the session’s moderator Sudo Tadashi, journalist and professor at the Japan University of Economics. Sunami Kazuki, MD of producer CoMix Wave Films and the Takeda Akihiro, an executive attached to the president’s office at the film’s worldwide distributor Toho, said that “Suzumi’s” success was not a foregone conclusion. Its success was years in the making and based on the growing performance of director Makoto Shinkai’s previous movies as well as growing international understanding of the Japanese anime genre. At the beginning of their collaboration, Shinkai and CoMix had little expectation that Shinkai’s works could appeal to non-Japanese distributors and audiences. But, within Asia at least, fans are tuned in to certain kinds of content from other countries. “We also owe this success to the cumulative impact of Studio Ghibli and ‘Demon Slayer 2’,” said Sunami. Shinkai’s 2013 film “The Garden of Words” was initially a Japan-only theatrical release, but it registered in China after Japanese box office success.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Ichiyama Shozo assumed control of the program of the Tokyo International Film Festival after a long programming career that included Tokyo and the slightly more indie Tokyo Filmex events. He is also a regular producing partner of Chinese art-house darling Jai Zhangke. These influences have shaped his approach to this year’s Tokyo IFF lineup, he told Variety.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief TIFFCOM, the film market attached to the Tokyo International Film Festival, is set to be more international and more diverse in its first full comeback year after the COVID hiatus. It should also be more pleasant and convenient, having re-located to a more modern venue that is close to the film festival. “Bringing the in-person market back after four years, my priority was to make sure that TIFFCOM could happen during the festival, not some other time,” said Shiina Yasushi, who has headed the market for ten years.

EXCLUSIVE: Mediawan Africa, the Republic of Benin and French-language international channel TV5 Monde are partnering to co-develop original daily fiction series The Best Is Yet To Come.

Netflix has released a new trailer for reality series Squid Game: The Challenge – check it out above.Based on Hwang Dong-hyuk’s Korean survival drama, the reality show sees 456 contestants from around the world compete in various challenges inspired by the series for a $4.56million cash prize.A synopsis reads: “As they compete through a series of games inspired by the original show – plus surprising new additions – their strategies, alliances, and character will be put to the test while competitors are eliminated around them.”As shown in the trailer, the show’s anmatronic doll returns for Red Light, Green Light, while the elevated glass bridge and honeycomb games from the series are also represented.It also shows some of the dynamics between contestants, as one remarks: “You can’t trust anybody in here.”The 10-episode season debuts on November 22, with new episodes premiering weekly through to December 6. The series is produced by Studio Lambert and The Garden.The streaming service announced a second season of Squid Game was in development in June last year.

Prime Video has set April 12, 2024 for the premiere of Fallout, its anticipated new series from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy and their Kilter films, based on the worldwide best-selling game franchise. It will be available to stream exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide. You can watch the date announcement below.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Along with the expansion of streaming, among the unintended consequences of COVID and the SAG-AFTRA actors strike has been global consumers’ growing consumption of non-English-language films and TV shows. That in turn has elevated familiarity with and acceptance of Asian local shows and Asian performers – not just those riding the Korean wave.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “This Time,” a romantic drama reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” trilogy, but not officially based on it, has been picked up for global distribution by fast-moving sales company EST N8. The story follows two high school sweethearts who unexpectedly reunite in Los Angeles 23 years after they were separated in Jakarta and must decide if they’re still in love. The film, directed by Sebastien Tobler, stars Ken Kirby (“Good Trouble,” “Dynasty”), Leila Perry (“Filthy Animals”) and was produced by Theresa Chiu. It had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in May. The rights deal was brokered by Tenten Wei and Sophie Shi of EST N8.