Peter Chan on the 20-Year Journey to Launch of Asia-Based TV Studio Changin’ Pictures

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Band of Brothers” writer Bruce McKenna is teaming with David Broyles (“Six”) and Nick Jones Jr. (“Yasuke”) to write and produce a limited TV series “Buffalo Rangers” about the 2nd Ranger Company, the only all-Black special operations combat unit in U.S. history. They were notable for their efforts in the Korean War. The series is being produced by South Korea-based Moving Pictures Company, which has a growing English-language slate. No broadcaster or streamer has been announced. Producing alongside Broyles, Jones and McKenna are Thomas Suh (through his production company Système D Entertainment), Paul Merryman (“The Outpost”), Debra Martin Chase (“Harriet,” CBS’s “The Equalizer”) and Jariko Denman (“The Outpost”), a retired master sergeant with 15 combat deployments.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Singapore has banned the release of “#LookAtMe,” a feature film by local director Ken Kwek. The InfoComm Media Development Authority said that the film exceeds film classification guidelines because it denigrates a religious community. Supposedly based in true events, the film depicts a man who is offended by a pastor who preaches against homosexuality, but whose behavior contradicts his teachings. The protagonist’s viral video about the aberrant priest lands him in jail, causing the man’s gay identical twin to fight for justice. “#LookAtMe,” premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival and local media report that the film has been selected for next month’s Singapore International Film Festival. But the IMDA ruling means that it cannot now be shown in any form in Singapore unless Kwek is successful with an appeal.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Homecoming, a patriotic rescue movie, dominated the mainland China box office for the third successive weekend. Overall numbers remained anemic in the first full week after the National Day holiday period, sometimes referred to as a ‘Golden Week’. “Homecoming” garnered $12.1 million (RMB85.6 million) between Friday and Sunday, according to data from consultancy and research firm Artisan Gateway. That gave the film a 64% share of the nationwide weekend aggregate. Accordingly, it was far ahead of second-placed film “Give Me Five,” which released on Sept. 9, 2022. “Give Me Five” earned just $1.9 million over the weekend, for a six-week cumulative of $63.8 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Taiwan-based development and production operation Organic Media is teaming up with Los Angeles-based sales agency and content aggregator Shoreline Entertainment in a strategic pact that sees Shoreline take responsibility for much of Organic’s sales function. The pairing will make its debut at this week’s MIPCOM TV rights market in Cannes. It will follow that with an appearance at the American Film Market in Santa Monica in early November. Organic was co-founded in 2019 by veteran sales and production executive Steve Chicorel and Kelly Mi Li (“Bling Empire”) and now has operations in Taipei, Los Angeles, London, Riga and Brisbane. The operation, now headed by Chicorel and Shari Hamrick, is currently in post-production on two movies and the second season of “Cypher,” a series for Roku.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief While the Busan International Film Festival was busily hailing a return to normality the slump at South Korea’s commercial box office deepened dramatically over the most recent weekend. Cinemagoing nationwide was worth only $4.20 million between Friday and Sunday, the lowest weekend total since April and a time before Korean cinemas shed their COVID restrictions. The weekend’s top film “Life Is Beautiful” managed the lowest first place score of any film this year, with a weekend haul of just $777,000, according to data from Kobiz, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Blackstone Publishing, Aethon Books and Sterling and Stone are among the first publishing partners to join Yonder, a new serialized fiction app combining mobile reading, a serialized experience and thousands of curated stories. Then venture is being launched by South Korea’s Naver, the tech giant that owns Webtoon and Wattpad, the story app that has germinated scores of book-to-film adaptations. The platform offers an ad-free reading experience with several chapters of each story available for free before readers are offered the chance to unlock additional material using virtual coins. At launch, Yonder is the home of exclusive new titles including “Bound to the Shadow Prince,” from Ruby Dixon, the international best-selling fantasy author of the TikTok viral sensation series “Ice Planet Barbarians”; “Bitten by Desire,” the first paranormal romance from best-selling author Ivy Smoak, (“The Hunted” book series”; and “Gravesong,” a spinoff of the popular web serial “The Wandering Inn,” from pirateaba.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chinese filmmaker, Bi Gan, best-known for his single-take feature “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” has seen his “A Short Story” picked up by Kino Lorber for distribution in North America. A fairy tale that follows the relationship between man and cat, the film had its world premiere in competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and now has its North American premiere in the Currents section of the New York Film Festival. Kino Lorber plans to qualify “A Short Story” for the 96th Academy Awards, showing it theatrically nationwide in early 2023 in tandem with a theatrical re-release of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” “Kino Lorber rarely acquires short films, but Bi Gan has packed more cinematic delight into the fifteen minutes of ‘A Short Story’ than many feature length films deliver in two hours,” said Kino Lorber SVP Wendy Lidell. The deal was brokered by Les Films du Losange.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Novelist Amy Tan and Oscar-winning “Rain Man” screenwriter Ron Bass are on board to deliver a sequel to “The Joy Luck Club,” the 1993 movie that broke new ground for Asian American representation. The new film, “Joy Luck Club 2,” is set up at Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment Group, with Ashok and Priya Amritraj producing alongside Tan, Bass and Jeff Kleeman. A director hasn’t been announced yet. The original “Joy Luck Club,” directed by Wayne Wang, was an epic, multigenerational saga of Chinese and Chinese-American mothers and daughters, whose histories, stories and lives interweave as they navigate life. Club members included characters played by Tsai Chin, France Nuyen, Lisa Lu and Kieu Chinh. The ensemble cast also included Tamlyn Tomita, Rosalind Chao and Russell Wong.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Future Laobans,” a project directed by Maung Sun and produced by Maung Sun and Ma Aeint, claimed the Busan Prize, the top award at the Asian Project Market, on Tuesday. The awards were made at an event held at the Paradise Hotel in Busan’s Haeundae district at the end of three days of quick-fire meetings between producers and directors and an array of potential co-producers, financiers and distributors. Organizers said that they put together 705 such one-on-one meetings. The CJ ENM Award went to Indonesia’ “Gaspar,” to be directed by Yosep Anggi Noen and produced by Yulia Evina Bhara and Cristian Imanueli.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Patriotic rescue film “Homecoming” largely dominated the Chinese box office over the latest weekend and brought to a close a deeply-depressed National Day holiday period. “Homecoming” earned $21.5 million between Friday and Sunday to lift its ten-day cumulative to $163 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That score accounted for a 71% share of the weekend’s $30.3 million total. Second-placed film “Ordinary Hero” earned just $2.2 million, giving it a ten-day total of $19.7 million. Previous top-ranking film, “Give Me Five” held on to third place, despite the volley of new releases on either September 30 or October 1. It collected $1.7 million for a cumulative of $60.8 million since release on Sept. 9, 2022.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Comedy action film “Confidential Assignment 2: International” claimed its fifth successive weekend victory at the South Korean box office as only U.S. horror film “Smile” was able to break into the top five.The CJ Entertainment-distributed “Confidential Assignment 2” managed $1.64 million over the Friday to Sunday period, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). That represented a 27% share of the market. “Confidential Assignment 2” recorded a 27% weekend on weekend decline. That pushed its cumulative total to $47 million, earned form $6.52 million ticket sales since release on Set. 7, 2022.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean indie production house, IMTV is developing and will produce a drama series based on the New York Times best-selling novel, “The Island of Sea Women” by Lisa See.  The story is set largely on the remote Korean island of Jeju, among the community of ‘haenyo,’ women who earn a living by free diving for mollusks, seaweed and other sea life from the depths of the ocean. Representatives of a rare semi matriarchal society, the women work while the menfolk typically stay at home, though property is passed down along male lines. Celebrated activist and Nobel Prize-winner Malala recently boarded a documentary project about the haenyo of Jeju that is set up at the A24 U.S. indie studio.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japan’s Toei Animation and Korea’s CJ ENM unveiled a volley of new projects on Saturday flowing from their previously-established cooperation pact. The new shows include: a series that will be produced in both live action and animated formats; a live action series; and a third animation series. “The genesis of this co-operation was the notion that we should play to the strengths of Korean content and Japanese animation,” said Yi Jongmin, the CJ executive who heads the joint venture’s shared control unit. “That was before we factor in language barriers and cultural differences and suffered the disruptions of the COVID pandemic.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Projects starring Donnie Yen and Zhang Ziyi are among the independently produced TV series to be launched on the sidelines of this week’s Busan International Film Festival. The company responsible is Changin’ Pictures, a would-be studio being hatched by Hong Kong-based film director and producer Peter Chan Ho-sun. Propelled by the growing recognition of Asian talent and the worldwide distribution potential of multinational SVOD platforms, Changin’ Pictures aims to be a powerhouse production hub suppling premium drama content to streaming players. The company has raised very substantial finance from Asian sources and aims to develop and produce series which it will pitch and license to the platforms, without recourse to the OTT companies’ production funding, greenlighting and editorial constraints.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST Studios, the film company established this year by 88Rising co-founder Jaeson Ma and former Vice Media executive Eric Tu, has struck a partnership arrangement with China’s Hugoeast Media. The partnership is looking at an initial slate of eight projects, with EST Studios representing sales at the major film markets including the upcoming Asian Contents and Film Market and Asian Project Market at the Busan International Film Festival. EST will be the exclusive representative for Hugoeast’s titles in North America. In other territories (outside of China) it will handle them on a non-exclusive basis.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Veteran media executive Fotini Paraskakis is launching Empire of Arkadia, an Asia-focused content company. The firm expects to unveil its debut slate in time for MIPCOM later this month. Paraskakis is joined in the venture by Japanese media executive Shigeko (Cindy) Chino and former Discovery APAC and EMEA president, Arthur Bastings. The trio describe Empire of Arkadia’s mission as bringing Asian-inspired stories, in both scripted and non-scripted sectors, to the international stage. They will lead with “forwarding-thinking stories that speak to younger generations.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Fresh from a chaotic Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday, TV coverage of Formula One motor racing is set to shift broadcasting partner in Asia-Pacific. Sports Business reports that pay-TV broadcaster beIN Sports is finalizing a multi-year deal beginning in 2023 reaching across most of its Asia-Pacific footprint, but excluding Australia, where Foxtel recently renewed its deal, and New Zealand.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Comedy action film “Confidential Assignment 2: International” remained at the top of the South Korean box office for the fourth consecutive weekend. Its enduring success came despite a slew of new releases intended to catch the National Foundation Day holiday weekend traffic. Between Friday and Sunday “Confidential Assignment 2” garnered $2.19 million from 304,000 ticket sales, and a market share of 29%. The weekend earnings lift it to a $43.3 million cumulative since release on Sept. 7, 2022. It is only the fourth film this year to have passed the six million spectators mark and the third Korean film to do so, following “The Roundup” (12.7 million) and “Hansan: Rising Dragon” (7.26 million).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Patriotic action film “Homecoming” dominated cinemagoing in China over the weekend with a nearly $60 million haul. But the National Day holiday season is in a deep slump compared with recent years. Directed by Rao Xiaozhi, the film is yet another tale of a heroic rescue of Chinese citizens in danger in foreign lands. In this instance, two Chinese diplomats must return to war-torn 2011 Libya to save 125 people who have been left behind. The film opened on Friday and garnered an impressive $59.3 million (RMB421) according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. It accounted for a thumping 67% market share. Imax reported that the film had been shot with Imax-certified cameras and that $3 million of the total came from its screens in China.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief KC Global Media, which operates a string of channels across Asia including AXN, anime channel Animax, South Korea’s ONE and Japanese entertainment channel GEM, has unveiled its first script development of a sci-fi live action series, “Jonesy.” The show is a sci-fi fantasy thriller action-comedy series set in the year 2029, with eight episodes of 15-20 minutes each. Production will be with Singapore-based production agency, Monochromatic Pictures, while development is supported through the Capability Partnership Programme (CPP) operated by the country’s Infocomm Media Development Authority. The show sees an internet crazy shut-in man driven to extremes by violent weather systems which carry with them supernatural beasts intent on devouring humankind. With his imaginary friend, the man learns to navigate the new world alone, confront his fears, battle colorful foes, and become humanity’s new hope when he kills one of the monsters during a livestream.