Sony India Puts Production Focus on Local IP That, Like Korean Content, Can Go Global – ATF

Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) and Zee Entertainment have completed their merger, creating a combined entity led by Zee CEO Punit Goenka fit to take on the U.S. streaming giants in the nation.

Sony Pictures Networks India Private Limited and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. on Wednesday announced that they have signed definitive agreements to merge ZEEL with and into SPNI and combine their linear TV networks, digital assets, production operations and program libraries.The merged company will retain Zee’s stock market listing in India.

Naman Ramachandran Amazon Prime Video India has signed a multi-year deal with New Zealand Cricket to exclusively stream in India all men’s and women’s cricket matches played in New Zealand across the one day international, twenty-20 and test formats. First up will be a test series between New Zealand and Bangladesh, beginning Jan.

Naman Ramachandran SPOILER ALERT for those who have not seen the film “Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui.”Bollywood A-lister Ayushmann Khurrana headlines the cast of transgender-themed romance “Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui,” which is currently on release worldwide.Across Indian cinema as a whole, trans characters have been portrayed sensitively as leads of films like “Daayra” (1996) “Tamanna” (1998), “Just Another Love Story” (2010), “Nanu Avanalla Avalu” (2015), “Njan Marykutty” (2018) and “Super Deluxe”

Sonia Kil Building on the success of “Parasite,” the Korean entertainment industry has had a huge 2021. K-pop remains a worldwide phenomenon, the Korean series “Squid Game” has found passionate audiences around the world and Korean actors are taking home awards gold.South Korea’s entertainment powerhouse CJ ENM — one of the drivers of this flowering — has announced six honorees as its “Visionaries” of 2021.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe death earlier this month of Chin Doo-hwan, the most hated of South Korea’s three military dictators, who ruled for nearly a decade until 1988, is a timely reminder of the foundations of the country’s present economic might.Today, South Korea combines global prowess in electronics, semiconductors and shipbuilding (industries boosted by the old regime’s strategic plans) and in culture and services, such as entertainment, cosmetics and food.

ZEE5 Global, the streaming platform specializing in South Asian content, has inked an agreement with local content studio Applause Entertainment that will see the latter create multiple Hindi shows for the streamer as ZEE5 originals.

Naman Ramachandran South Asian content specialist streamer ZEE5 Global has entered into a strategic partnership with Indian content and IP studio Applause Entertainment, for multiple shows.The partnership is designed to create a slate of Hindi-language originals across genres.

topped streaming ratings in over 80 countries within 24 hours of its debut on Nov 19th. This comes right after gruesome Korean drama “Squid Game” also topped the charts, with a staggering 1.65 billion views its first month out.

Space has long been the go-to location for sci-fi projects and it’s easy to see why. A void that is cold, dark, and deadly, outer space thrives as much on the unknown as it does known variables.

EXCLUSIVE: Simon Cowell’s ITV format Walk The Line has started attracting interest from global buyers, according to exec producer Lee McNicholas, who praised South Korean entertainment shows for “ripping up the rulebook” and “forcing us to re-examine the way we approach formats.” Distributor ITV Studios Global Entertainment is in conversation with several territories over the sale of six-parter, McNicholas said.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Aloners,” a critically-acclaimed debut feature about loneliness, is set to receive a theatrical release in North America in early 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: A trio of Korean unscripted formats are heading to the U.S. and international marketplace after Korean company Something Special struck a deal with Breaking Borders producer My Entertainment.

Oh! My Gran is set to hit Chinese theatres this Friday (December 3), becoming the first Korean film to be screened in the nation in six years since 2015’s Assassination, starring Jun Ji-hyun (Legend Of The Blue Sea, Jirisan) and Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game, The Housemaid).Oh! My Gran, which first premiered in 2020, stars actress Na Moon-hee as the film’s lead character of Moon-hee, an elderly woman who believes she is a princess in an animated series, but is actually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s

MONSTA X has opened up about how its like to record music in English.In a recent interview with Forbes, the singer discussed the process of recording a full-length album completely in English, in light of their upcoming sophomore English album ‘The Dreaming’, which arrives on December 10.“It was very easy,” he said, when asked about the difficulty of performing in a third language, compared to Korean and Japanese.

SEOUL, South Korea -- Despite being one of the most well-known faces in Asia, acting never gets easier for South Korean superstar Gianna Jun.“I feel like I climbed the mountain 1,000 times,” she said about filming her latest series, “Jirisan.”Jun plays Seo Yi-Gang, a mountain ranger at Jirisan, a mountain located about four hours south of central Seoul.

Rebecca Davis editorAfter a six-year hiatus, Korean cinema is set to return to the Chinese big screen in wide release at last.This Friday, Dec. 3, Chinese cinemas will run the 2020 comedy “Oh! My Gran (Oh! Moon-Hee),” official posters said Wednesday.

announced on Wednesday.The news comes on the heels of Netflix ordering a spinoff of “Money Heist” focusing on the Berlin character, a terminally ill jewel thief played by Pedro Alonso in the original Spanish-language series.“Money Heist” was originally planned to be a limited series that played out in two parts, but after airing its original run of 15 episodes in Spain, Netflix acquired global streaming rights and renewed the series for an expanded Part 3 and eventually Parts 4 and 5.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefITV Studios, the commercial arm of the U.K.’s commercial TV network ITV, has struck a raft of sales and pre-sales deals ahead of the Asia Television Forum & Market that launched Wednesday in Singapore. “The Ipcress File,” a spy thriller from Altitude Film Entertainment, was licensed to Now TV in Hong Kong and the Seven Network in Australia, Lionsgate Play in India and Southeast Asia and TFC in Japan.