Shanghai: Wanda Film Strikes Huge Cinema Renewal Deal With Imax

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Malaysia International Film Festival (Miffest), which runs July 21-28, will open with horror film “Indera” by local director Woo Ming Jin and starring Shaheizy Sam and Azira Shafinaz. The festival will conclude with the double feature of “Love Lies” by Ho Miu Ki and “Peg O’ My Heart” by Nick Cheung.

Brent Simon As festivals have increasingly endeavored to showcase more diverse talent, benchmarks of inclusivity occasionally run the risk of feeling like a dutiful checklist. The Bentonville Film Festival, though, has celebrated — and elevated — underrepresented voices since its inception.

EXCLUSIVE: The back and forth over the prospect of a hot-button film on the formative years of Donald Trump is near done, and The Dish hears that backer Kinematics will soon be bought out of Daniel Snyder’s $5 million investment with a premium. Tom Ortenberg, who runs Briarcliff Entertainment and has overseen the distribution of films that included Fahrenheit 9/11, Best Picture winner Spotlight, Nightcrawler and many others, is getting close to acquiring the film for fall release.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Caught by the Tides,” the contemporary Chinese epic film directed by Jia Zhangke, has been acquired for U.S. release by Sidehow and Janus Films. The film appeared in main competition in Cannes in May and is on one an extended look at the romantic destiny of his perennial heroine, Qiaoqiao (Zhao Tao) over a period of 21 years.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The stars of upcoming Chinese-language TV drama “See Her Again” are set to take to the red carpet on Monday, the first day of the Shanghai Television Festival. Telling the story of a police officer who traces a serial murder case across 25 years in Hong Kong, using clues from 1993 and technology from 2018, the show stars William Chan Wai-ting and Cya Liu (aka Liu Xin).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The 17th edition of the SIFF Project Market, held on the margins of the Shanghai International Film Festival, wrapped this week with the awarding of various prizes and an early evening party. In the juried section prizes were determined by a panel including Lu Chuan, Luca Liang and Yao Chen.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Fantastic Pavilion, the genre business hub launched at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, announced a slew of deals closed at the venue this year, with L..A-based Severin Films, a boutique Blu-ray and DVD label, inking a pact to release eleven Special Edition physical discs of the most popular Originals and licensed features from horror subscription streamer Shudder and IFC Films. Initial titles include Joko Anwar’s “Satan’s Slaves”; Brandon Cronenberg’s “Antiviral”; Can Evrenol’s “Baskin”; Franck Khalfoun’s 2012 remake of “Maniac”; Douglas Buck’s 2006 remake of “Sisters” and André Øvredal’s “The Autopsy of Jane Doe.” The deal was brokered by Severin Film’s co-founder-CEO David Gregory, Shudder’s Vice President of Programming Sam Zimmerman, and AMC Networks Director of Content Sales Lucas Verga.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Steve W. Chung, a former executive at Fox and Korea’s CJ ENM, has been appointed as the inaugural COO of Azuki, an anime community platform and digital art collection.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent TOLEDO, Spain — Launched in November, Banijay Branded Entertainment (BBE), has closed strategic partnerships aligned with software, insights and data company, Launchmetrics, and Banijay Iberia’s creative agency IMA, in order to enhance the expertise and appeal to clients of BBE’s 360° production, marketing and measurement services. Made at Spain’s Conecta Fiction, the announcement comes hours before Carlotta Rossi Spencer, head of branded entertainment business development, Banijay Entertainment, will talk on a panel at the forum, as producers and companies look for ever more engaging ways to promote their content and brands – and measure the results of their campaigns.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chinese industry executives will get a first taste of “Coolie,” a big-budget historical miniseries that focuses on the enslaved Chinese workers in Cuba in the 1860s. MM2 Entertainment is handling China rights to the production on behalf of I.E. Entertainment.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Verzuz, the online platform launched during the pandemic by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, has struck a distribution partnership with Elon Musk’s X. The pair made the announcement during Cannes Lions conference in France on Wednesday. Earlier in the year, Swizz and Timbaland reacquired Verzuz from their previous partner Triller and now own 100% of the platform, while retaining their equity (along with the artists who participated in Verzuz) in Triller, according to the announcement.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Extinction,” the Malaysian-produced animation that is playing at the Shanghai International Film Festival, has struck its first international rights sales deals. The film was recently picked up by All Rights Entertainment, the Paris, Hong Kong and Los Angeles-based sales agency. All Rights has subsequently licensed the title to Magic Film for the CIS region, to Dazzler Media for the U.K., to Red Cape Distribution for Israel and to Bir Film for Turkey.

Imax and Wanda Film, China‘s largest exhibitor, have announced a big expansion of their longtime strategic partnership there spanning technology and content.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-starring feminist body horror film “The Substance” has been set as the closing night title for the New Zealand International Film Festival. The picture is one of 16 which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month selected for the NZIFF which is now under the artistic leadership of Paolo Bertolin.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Zhang Yimou, director of many of China’s most spectacular and successful movies, is to try his hand at sci-fi. He will direct a film adaptation of “The Three-Body Problem.” The project was announced Sunday by Wang Changtian, founder and CEO of Enlight Media, one of China’s top three studios, at a forum organized within the Shanghai International Film Festival. Wang said that Zhang is in the early stages of preparations for the film.

There’s big, and bad, news for all soap fans as the Euro 2024 airing on ITV has resulted in a big schedule change for both Coronation Street and Emmerdale. ITV have made big changes to their listings to make way for the matches hitting the screens.The latest episode of Manchester-based soap Corrie was axed on Friday 14 June, and it will remain off-air on Monday 17 June while the Austria v France takes its space. Emmerdale will also remain off-screen as the match also takes up its usual slot as coverage.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Parallax China, one of China’s leading independent film sales companies, has picked up rights to a pair of titles that debut this week at the Shanghai International Film Festival. It is handling world sales on “Qian Tang River,” directed by Wan Bo, and “Another Day of Hope,” by Liu Taifeng. Both are directorial debuts and both appear in the non-competitive Refreshing Chinese Cinema section.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Along with a red-carpet opening ceremony, a press conference with the members of the main competition jury is a staple event of major film festivals and the 26th edition of the Shanghai International Film Festival kicked off in traditional form on Friday. Along with Vietnam-French director Tran Anh Hung, previously revealed as jury president, the other members of the decisive committee this year are: Australian director and screenwriter Rolf de Heer; German director Matthias Glasner; Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Ka Fai; Argentinian director Santiago Mitre; Chinese director Sonthar Gyal; and, the jury’s only woman, star actor Zhou Xun. A packed audience lobbed familiar questions about the criteria they jurors would employ to decide the Golden Goblet prize winners, and what informs those views.

EXCLUSIVE: Rolin Jones, developer, executive producer and showrunner of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, has signed a new multi-year overall with AMC Studios, which is behind the gothic horror drama. This is an encouraging sign for the future of the series, which is currently airing its second season on AMC and AMC+.

EXCLUSIVE: On the heels of the season two finale of Apple’s critically acclaimed comedy series Loot, starring Maya Rudolph (who also exec produces), Apple TV+ has signed a multi-year, first-look deal with Banana Split Projects, the newly formed production company run by Maya Rudolph and Danielle Renfrew Behrens.  Under the deal, Apple TV+ will have a first-look on series and digital features developed and produced by Banana Split.