Asia Pacific Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Two months after revealing its Korean slate for 2024, Disney+ has unveiled another series from the country. Titled Low Life, the show will premiere on the platform next year and Hulu in the U.S.

Naman Ramachandran Steffi Niederzoll’s Berlin, CPH: DOX and El Gouna-winning documentary “Seven Winters in Tehran” added another award to its collection with the best international film honor at India’s inaugural Cinevesture International Festival (CIFF). Anmol Sidhu’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards nominee “Jaggi” won best Indian film and Elham Ehsas’ BAFTA and Clermont-Ferrand nominee “Yellow” was named as best short.

Naman Ramachandran Korean action drama “A Shop For Killers” has become the most viewed local original on Disney+ in the Asia Pacific region (Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines) so far in 2024, the streamer has revealed. Set in contemporary Korea, the eight-part series follows college student Jeong Jian who dives for cover in her childhood home after a series of highly skilled assassins come after her.

Naman Ramachandran India’s Sandeep Singh will direct “The Pride of Bharat – Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj,” a biopic of revered 17th century Indian ruler Shivaji Bhonsle. Singh has produced several acclaimed films including Toronto title, boxing biopic “Mary Kom” (2014), Asia Pacific Screen Awards-winning gay rights drama “Aligarh” (2015) and slum soccer film “Jhund” (2022). He made his directorial debut with ZEE5 streaming original, the transgender-themed “Safed” (2023).

Fox Entertainment Global (FEG) is headed to the London TV Screenings with a new-look sales team.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Latin America is about to get an array of new thematic channels, thanks to a strategic partnership between Canal+ Group’s Thema America and SPI Int’l. SPI Int’l’s popular channels FunBox UHD, FilmBox Arthouse, Gametoon, FightBox, DocuBox, Fast&FunBox, FashionBox, Erox, Eroxxx, and 360TuneBox, will be distributed across the region via Thema America, which will represent and distribute the channels.

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Prime Video Southeast Asia is cutting its originals team in Singapore and moving to a “leaner operating model,” as part of the globe wave of redundancies announced earlier this week.

Naman Ramachandran The documentary projects vying for the 2024 Sunny Side of the Doc Global Pitch for Global Change award examine a range of topics linked to the sustainable development goals defined by the United Nations. On Feb.

Global box office is estimated to have reached $33.9B for 2023, a 30.5% gain on 2022, according to Gower Street Analytics. While this represents continuing worldwide recovery, the figure remains 15% behind the average of the last three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019). Gower Street also recently estimated that, due in part to this year’s strike-impacted release calendar, 2024 is projected to drop to $31.5 billion, which, given today’s revised estimate for last year, would come in at 7% below 2023. 

Banijay Asia Unveils Leadership Team Following Endemol Acquisition

Naman Ramachandran Canadian conglomerate, Blue Ant Media has scored sales of some 550 hours of programming to Asia Pacific broadcasters, it was revealed at Singapore’s Asia TV Forum & Market (ATF). Content was sourced from across Blue Ant’s portfolio companies.

Warner Bros Discovery‘s international restructuring has continued with James Gibbons setting out the shape of his Asia Pacific team, with Japanese Country Manager Masami Takahashi choosing to retire.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed several leadership roles across its Asia Pacific (APAC) business, following the appointment of James Gibbons as president, Asia Pacific, in October.

Warner Bros. Discovery is restructuring its Global Brands, Franchises, and Experiences — overseeing worldwide consumer products, themed entertainment, franchise management and DC Comics businesses – following the departure of the division’s president Pam Lifford.

Warner Bros. Discovery international boss Gerhard Zeiler has set a new leadership structure for his team following a spate of exits in the past few weeks.

Prime Video has big plans for the Southeast Asia region, including the introduction of channels and an expanded local-language content slate, the streamer’s Vice President, Asia Pacific, Gaurav Gandhi, told the APOS conference today. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Blue Ant Media, the Canadian-owned group with operations spanning TV production, distribution and channels management, is creating a new Asia-Pacific base in Sydney, Australia. It has hired Jon Penn as its Asia-Pacific MD and Jason Soh as VP of distribution, based in Singapore.Penn is a veteran with ten years in Asia with BBC Studios and 11 years of experience at Fremantle. Latterly, he has been a partner at ACT Media Ventures and advised Blue Ant on its expansion in Australia. “The appointments signal the expansion of Blue Ant Media’s channel and program distribution business in Asia Pacific, combining the company’s channel distribution and content sales in the region into one unit.

Disney+ has scored the next breakout hit from Asia after “Squid Game.” Star-studded international espionage series “Moving” has become the most watched Korean original on Disney+ globally and Hulu in the U.S., based on hours streamed after seven days. In its first week since launch on Aug. 9, the series also became the most watched series on Disney+ across Asia Pacific, including in Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan – based on hours watched – and the biggest premiere on Disney+ in Korea to date, based on hours streamed in the first week since launch.

Media Partners Asia has announced the full line-up of speakers for its APOS Summit in Bali, which includes Canal+ Group’s Asia Pacific chief Manuel Rougeron, Bodhi Tree Systems director Uday Shankar and Amazon Prime Video head of international Kelly Day. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Gerhard Zeiler, president of international at Warner Bros. Discovery, will give the opening keynote at the 39th edition of TV market Mipcom, which runs Oct. 16-19 in Cannes.

Refresh for latest…: Disney/Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is off to a disappointing start with a $130M global opening. Of that, $70M is from 52 international box office markets as the the fifth installment in the beloved 42-year-old franchise came in below projections.

Tyson Fury is reportedly in talks to fight Australian heavyweight Demsey McKean as his next opponent.

Naman Ramachandran Phil Nelson will lead CNN Worldwide’s international business operations and its work with commercial partners outside of the U.S. Nelson previously served as COO of CNN International Commercial (CNNIC) from 2019. In the new position of executive VP, CNNIC, he becomes part of CNN Worldwide’s leadership team and reports into the network’s group executive VP of business operations and strategy, Chris Marlin. Nelson is now responsible for all international advertising sales, content sales and licensing and commercial distribution revenue, as well as related client solutions functions including the Create brand studio and digital and data operations.

Australia, already one of the world’s leading inbound production hubs, has increased its Location Offset for international film and TV productions shooting in the country to 30% from the current 16.5%, effective from July 1, 2023. 

Netflix has said it will invest $2.5BN in South Korean series, films and unscripted shows over the next four years.

Illumination/Universal’s The Super Mario Bros Movie began its international rollout today in 44 markets, and will expand to 70 through Friday. While we are waiting on numbers from a great many of today’s debuts, early word out of Asia Pacific is encouraging at $7.95M including sneaks. 

Amazon India has signed a Letter of Engagement (LoE) with the country’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) in a bid to boost the creative economy.

Priyanka Chopra is opening up about the truth behind the acting industry.

Naman Ramachandran Leads Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden kicked off the global tour of Prime Video series “Citadel” with its Asia Pacific premiere in Mumbai on Monday. The series, created by Amazon Studios and the Russo Brothers’ AGBO, with David Weil serving as showrunner and executive producer, revolves around independent global spy agency Citadel, which has been destroyed by syndicate Manticore. With Citadel’s fall, elite agents Mason Kane (Richard Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) had their memories wiped as they narrowly escaped with their lives and have remained hidden ever since, building new lives under new identities, unaware of their pasts. Until one night, when Mason is tracked down by his former Citadel colleague, Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci), who desperately needs his help to prevent Manticore from establishing a new world order. The six episode series also features Lesley Manville in a pivotal role.

EXCLUSIVE: David Tennant, Danny Dyer and Aidan Turner are featuring in an ensemble cast for Disney+’s adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals.

Top executives from Asian media companies including CJ ENM, Zee Entertainment Enterprises, BEC World and Bona Film Group discussed Asia’s changing media landscape on the first day of Hong Kong’s Filmart. 

Naman Ramachandran Asian content heavyweights revealed their thoughts on several subjects at a panel called “The Asian Wave in 2023 and Beyond” on March 13, the opening day of FilMart in Hong Kong. The lively session, moderated by Variety‘s Asia editor Patrick Frater, featured Sebastian Kim, director of international content sales and acquisition at Korea’s CJ ENM, Sanmesh Thakur, executive VP and territory head, Asia Pacific, at India’s Zee Entertainment Enterprises and Ziraviss Vindhanapisuth, VP, international business at Thailand’s BEC World Public Company. The evergreen topic of co-production was discussed in some depth. Kim said: “We’ve been looking for this formula for decades and for now, we find that the best formula of co-production is more like an adaptation of the original — A place to B place production — that’s how we’ve been doing it.”

FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV) channels are set for big growth in the UK, according to new data.

Refresh for latest…: Coming out of its second weekend, Disney/Marvel’s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania has grossed $363.6M globally. Of that, $167.3M is from domestic and $196.3M from the international box office.

The World Trailer Awards on Tuesday unveiled regional winners for its 2023 edition, with more than 70 projects selected from seven regions representing excellence in entertainment marketing across cinema, television (broadcast and cable), streaming and games.

NBCUniversal (NBCU) has signed BBC Studios Global Distribution COO Maggy Chan to lead its global advertising and partnerships in the U.S., EMEA and Asia Pacific, replacing KC Sullivan, who recently became CNBC President.