Singapore’s Anthony Chen Finishes Shooting his First Mainland Chinese Movie ‘The Breaking Ice (EXCLUSIVE)

It’s never going to fit in there, you think. Surely not. But every time, the giant stuffed Chinese answer to a crepe somehow manages to fold its way into the bag, before a plastic fork is jabbed unceremoniously into its innards.

Wu Jing, the highest-grossing male actor of all time in China, will join British action star Jason Statham in Warner Bros.’s “Meg 2: The Trench,” sources close to the production have confirmed to Variety.The giant shark actioner, however, will be without Li Bingbing (“Transformers: Age of Extinction”). The Chinese actor, who played a female oceanographer, embodying both brains and beauty in Jon Turteltaub’s testosterone-fueled 2018 “The Meg,” is not returning to the franchise at this point.With Ben Wheatley in the directing chair, production on “Meg 2: The Trench” began at the end of January at the Warner-owned Leavesden Studios outside London.

Partner Content The ongoing pandemic has inevitably changed the workings of the global film industry in a variety of ways. Throughout these ups and downs, one thing has yet to waver, and that’s the demand for new content.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterSony executives breathed a sigh of relief when “Uncharted,” a big-budget adaptation of the popular video game, secured a release date in China.The Chinese government, which has absolute control over which movies play in its theaters (and when they debut), has recently been ultra-selective about the non-Chinese films it allows to screen in the country’s tens of thousands of venues. As a result, many of Hollywood’s biggest pandemic-era releases, such as “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and “Eternals,” weren’t granted access to Chinese movie theaters.

Bill Maher zeroed in on China during the latest edition of “Real Time”, targeting the winter Olympics in Beijing during the “New Rules” segment.

Bill Maher couldn’t hide his contempt for the country hosting the Winter Olympics on his Friday Real Time. 

Creative Assembly’s Total War: Warhammer 3 is being review bombed on Steam by Chinese users unhappy with the game’s marketing.The game is receiving a large number of negative reviews from Chinese players who felt the marketing in the lead up to Total War: Warhammer 3 was poorly handled and has impacted the experience of playing the game (via PCGamer).Many of the complaints appear to be aimed at the distribution of early copies to influencers. Access to Total War: Warhammer 3 was given to a large number of content creators, many of whom has little interest or understanding of the game.

Christopher Vourlias Russian sci-fi comedy “Couple from the Future,” a 2021 box-office hit directed by Alexey Nuzhny (“Fire”), is getting a Chinese remake, Variety has learned.Production and distribution powerhouse Central Partnership has sold the rights for a Chinese adaptation to Shanghai Matching Culture Media.The film is set in the year 2040. Evgeniy and Alexandra have been married for 20 years, and their relationship has lost its passion. Getting divorced isn’t an option – in the future, annulling a marriage is a very expensive affair.

original ending of “Fight Club” has been restored on Chinese streamer Tencent Video, director David Fincher is still baffled as to why it was ever changed in the first place.“A company licensed the film from New Regency to show it in China, with a boilerplate [contract]: ‘You have to understand cuts may be made for censorship purposes,'” the director explained in a recent interview with Empire. “No one said, ‘If we don’t like the ending, can we change it?’ So there’s now a discussion being had as to what ‘trims’ means.”Fincher added that it wasn’t so much the trims themselves that bothered him, but why they were made.

Nathan Chen has won Olympic gold!

EXCLUSIVE: London-based sales agent Dogwoof has picked up world rights to Tommy Gulliksen’s Sound Of Ice, a documentary about musician Terje Isungset’s project to produce and play musical instruments crafted from each of the world’s most endangered glaciers.

Nathan Chen has earned his place in the Olympics record book!

Nathan Chen has earned his place in the Olympics record book!

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe upcoming “American Born Chinese” series adaptation at Disney Plus has found its main cast, Variety has confirmed.Ben Wang, Michelle Yeoh, Yeo Yann Yann, Daniel Wu, Chin Han, Ke Huy Quan, Jim Liu, and Sydney Taylor will all star in the series, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Gene Luen Yang.The series follows Jin Wang (Ben Wang), a teenager juggling his high school social life with his immigrant home life. When Jin meets a new foreign exchange student (Jim Liu) on the first day of school, their worlds collide as Jin becomes entangled in a battle of Chinese mythological gods.

EXCLUSIVE: After teaming in the Disney/Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Michelle Yeoh is set to top an international cast for the Destin Daniel Cretton-directed Disney+ fantastical series American Born Chinese. She will star alongside Ben Wang (MacGyver), Yeo Yann Yann (Wet Season), Chin Han (Mortal Kombat), Daniel Wu (Reminiscence), Ke Huy Quan (Finding Ohana), former Taekwondo champion Jim Liu and Sydney Taylor (Just Add Magic).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChina’s giant Tencent Video has begun playing David Fincher’s classic “Fight Club” with its original dystopian ending now intact. The move to restore the final scenes comes barely two weeks after it emerged that the ending of the film as it played on Chinese streaming had been changed so that law and order prevail.There has been no explanation of the reversal, nor who was responsible for the previous amendment to the 1999 film. Online pressure from fans and a chorus of international media commentary highlighting the Chinese government’s penchant for micro-management, may have secured a rare policy reversal.In Fincher’s original film Edward Norton’s narrator character kills off his alter ego Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) before watching buildings burst into flame in apparent confirmation that his plan to destroy modern civilization is being executed.

Refresh for latest…: While Spider-Man: No Way Home continued to lead the international box office for studio films this weekend, weaving its way to a worldwide cume of $1.77B through Sunday, the biggest overseas action was out of (and limited to) China.