‘Samurai Ninja Onimanji’ Picked up by MultiVisionnaire Ahead of Cannes Market Launch (EXCLUSIVE)

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief French independent producer Haut Les Mains has come on board “A Useful Ghost,” a film project that is both topical and supernatural. The deal was announced on the margins of the Cannes Film Festival and its accompanying rights market. “A Useful Ghost” follows March and Nat, a happily married couple, and their seven-year-old son Dot. Nat dies of respiratory disease caused by air pollution. A saddened March is worried that the same fate will befall his son, who gradually develops similar symptoms. Nat then returns as a ghost haunting the house vacuum cleaner to try and suck up the dust hurting her son. She also longs to be accepted as part of society and intends to prove that by getting rid of the less useful ghosts.

Lily-Rose Depp is one proud daughter!ET's Rachel Smith spoke to Lily-Rose virtually from the Cannes Film Festival in the South of France Tuesday, where she said she couldn't be happier for her father, Johnny Depp, following the seven-minute standing ovation he received after the premiere of his new biographical drama, .The film marked the opening of the 76th annual event, and the  star's first leading role since his highly publicized defamation trial against his ex-wife, Amber Heard.The French-language film sees Johnny as King Louis XV. Set in the 18th century,  tells the story of Jeanne Bécu (Maïwenn), the daughter of an impoverished seamstress who rose through the Court of Louis XV and became his last official mistress.«I'm super happy for him.

Lise Pedersen The highest award for docs-in-progress at the Cannes Film Market’s sidebar dedicated to documentary, Cannes Docs, has gone to Ya-Ting Hsu’s debut feature doc “Islands of the Winds.” Twenty years in the making, the film follows the anti-eviction struggle of the patients of Losheng Sanatorium for lepers, which became a symbol of the fight for democracy in Hsu’s native Taiwan. The prize comes with a €10,000 ($10,800) cash prize and project follow-up by IEFTA (the International Emerging Film Talent Assn.). It is produced by Hsu’s Taiwan-based Argosy Films and Media Productions, Huang Yin-Yu (Moolin Films, Ltd. & Moolin Production, Co., Ltd, Taiwan and Japan) and Baptiste Brunner (Wide Productions – La Cuisine aux Images, France).

EXCLUSIVE: France tv distribution has launched sales on French director Benoît Jacquot’s upcoming crime thriller Belle starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Guillaume Canet.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief All Rights Entertainment, the Paris-, Hong Kong- and Los Angeles based international sales company, is launching sales at the Cannes Market (Marché du Film) for “The Proud Princess.” The picture is an animation film based on the fairy tale book “Punished Pride,” written by Bozena Nemcova. Directed by Borivoj Zeman and starring Alena Vranova and Vladimir Raz, a 1952 live-action adaptation of the book is one of the most-watched Czech films of all time. The new adaptation is directed by Radek Beran (“The Little Man”) and David Lisy (“Spy Cat”). Production is by Luminar Film with Animation is handled by PFX, the Prague-based studio behind “Diplodokus,” “The Websters” and “Marnie’s World,” and is to be completed in the third quarter of 2024. Czech theatrical distribution is set to be handled by CinemArt.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “In Our Day,” the film by South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo which closes the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes film festival, has seen distributors in multiple territories move early to strike rights deals. French rights were picked up by Capricci), Spanish rights by L’Atalante Cinema and Greek rights by Ama Films. The film has its official premiere on May 25. Seoul-based Finecut has long been the sales agent for Hong’s plentiful output. In addition to the deals on “In Our Day,” Finecut signed agreements with L’Atalante, with France’s Ariona Films and Taiwan’s Cola Films for “In Water,” Hong’s first film of 2023 which premiered in the Encounters section in Berlin in February. The film was previously sold to Cinema Guild for North America.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Wilfredo Manalang, who was one of the producers of last year’s Cannes’ Japanese hit “Plan 75,” has come on board Vietnamese film project “Don’t Cry, Butterfly.” Manalang (aka Will Fredo) and partners in his Philippines-based Fusee consortium will join as an executive producer. Written and to be directed by Duong Dieu Linh, “Don’t Cry, Butterfly” follows a Vietnamese housewife who finds out that her husband is cheating on her. Instead of confronting him, she uses voodoo on him so he falls back in love with her. Production of “Don’t Cry Butterfly” is by Tan Si En at Singapore-based Momo Film Co. The company was founded in 2018 by Tan and writer-director Kris Ong. In 2021, Beach House Pictures, part of Canada’s Blue Ant Media, acquired a majority stake in Momo.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Mixed martial arts thriller “Glass Dragon” has been picked up for international sales by MPI Media. The company is launching the title at the Cannes Market. The film, now in post-production, is produced by Asia-facing Los Angeles company Eleven Arts and RE:Anime, a firm that adapts beloved anime series into captivating live-action films. “Glass Dragon” stars Miki Mizuno (“Bayside Shakedown”), a martial artist and single mother who has to accelerate her life plans when things go badly wrong for her and her daughter. The picture also stars the veteran martial arts film star Mark Dacascos (“Cradle 2 the Grave,” “Hawaii Five-0,” “John Wick 3,” “Iron Chef America”). Other acting credits got to Maryjun Takahashi (“Rurouni Kenshin”) and Kiki Sukezane (“Westworld,” “Lost in Space”). 

EXCLUSIVE: Shia LaBeouf has joined action thriller Mace, directed by Jon Amiel from a script by David Chisholm. Trevor Jackson (Grown-ish, Superfly) will co-star. Myriad Pictures is shopping the project to buyers here in Cannes this week. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The premium end of the streaming video sector in India is poised for shake-up, with Reliance Industries’ JioCinema challenging the SVOD dominance of Disney+ Hotstar, new research suggests. “The India Online Video Report: Analysis of Consumption, Content & Investment Trends,” from Singapore-based Media Partners Asia, shows total consumption across the online video sector reached 6.1 trillion minutes for the 15-month period from Jan 2022 to Mar 2023. Within that period, the SVOD, AVOD and freemium platforms accounted for some 12% of viewing time, up from 10% in 2021. Social services such as YouTube and TikTok accounted for 88% of viewing time.

Naman Ramachandran Breaking Glass Pictures has acquired worldwide rights to Jay Arnold’s award-winning LGBTQ+ romantic drama feature “Shoulder Dance” and will launch sales at the Cannes film market. The film stars Matt Dallas (“Kyle XY”), Rick Cosnett (“The Flash”), Taylor Frey (“It Chapter Two”), Samuel Larsen (“Glee”) and Maggie Geha (“Gotham”). Arnold (“What Happens Next”) directed from his original screenplay. The deal was negotiated between Breaking Glass Pictures CEO Rich Wolff, Amanda Rae Simon, Esq., COO Susan Helfrich, Arnold, and Ethan Bearman, Esq., The Bearman Firm.

EXCLUSIVE: Benedict Cumberbatch has signed to star in Dylan Southern’s adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novel Grief is the Thing With Feathers about a father and his two young sons dealing with the sudden death of their wife and mother.

EXCLUSIVE: LA-based production, finance, and sales company Premiere Entertainment have picked up international rights to the military action thriller Warhorse One, starring actor Johnny Strong (Black Hawk Down).

EXCLUSIVE: British genre specialist Tea Shop, known for 47 Meters Down and coming off breakout thriller Fall, is lining up its next survival pic in the shape of The Bayou, which Architect is launching for sales in Cannes.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Box office headlines have lately been dominated by Hollywood movies like Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which has become the first movie of the year to hit $1 billion, and Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3.” But a closer look at the global box office recovery indicates that Tinseltown does not have the field to itself. In fact, international films and markets — not the United States — are driving the current global box office recovery. In some territories, local-language titles are even dominant over Hollywood releases. And the overall scale of overseas ticket sales now dwarfs that of North America by more than two to one.

EXCLUSIVE:  Destry Allyn Spielberg’s directorial debut, Please Don’t Feed the Children, is heading to the Cannes market with Altitude Film Sales, which is repping world sales.

Naman Ramachandran German writer-director Anna Roller’s feature debut “Dead Girls Dancing” is set to launch at the Cannes film market. Totem Films is handling international sales while WME Independent is looking after U.S. sales. The film will have a premiere co-hosted by the Tribeca Film Festival and the Munich International Film Festival in June. The film follows recent high school graduates Ira, Malin and Ka on a road trip across Italy who pick up the intriguing backpacker Zoe. As the four girls stumble across an abandoned village, they start to experiment with the limits of their newly found freedom, away from the expectations of their parents and teachers.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Alexi Tan, a screenwriter and director who was a protégé of John Woo, has teamed with artist Charles Simpson to launch comic book “Monk Wars.” The “Monk Wars” universe is a dystopian gritty world filled with martial arts action and a broad array of diverse characters. The first book will follow Monk Ma, who has ancient animal powers, as he assembles his followers to take on the Rat-Men soldiers.

Letitia Wright is stepping into the ring for In the Shadows, a drama based on the true story of Ramla Ali, the first Somali British professional boxing champion. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Bruce Berman, a senior executive who was previously chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based Village Roadshow Pictures, has come out of retirement to board the recently-founded film studio Through the Lens Entertainment. The company, founded by producer Aditya Chand, is headquartered in Singapore with operations in the U.S. and Japan. It aims to combine the opportunities of the East and the power and experience of the studio systems in the West, “to offer a new studio ecosystem out of Asia, that is built for the digital age.” Two film projects are already underway and a third with “Slumdog Millionaire” star Frieda Pinto is in development.