Sony Strategic Plans Target Expansion in Music, Games, Anime – and India

Jordan Moreau SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” now playing in theaters. Just like the infinite Spider-Verse itself, there are so many different versions of Spider-Man and other spider-themed heroes that pop up in “Across the Spider-Verse” that it’s almost impossible to keep track of everything.

Several people have died and a further 100 are seriously hurt after three trains collided in India.

Viewers of Britain's Got Talent have slammed the show as a "fix" as one vowed they'll "never watch it again" following the third semi-finals which aired on ITV on Wednesday. Ghetto Kids, Dylan B, Toy Toy Toy, Notorious, Markus Birdman, Miki Dark, Travis George and Harry Churchill were all in the semi-final, as they performed their sets in front of the judges, Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and Bruno Tonioli.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The U.K.’s London Indian Film Festival and Birmingham Indian Film Festival will work together to present a two-city, two-part panoply of feature and short films, kicking off next month with “The Storyteller.” Directed by Ananth Mahadevan, “The Storyteller” sees Adil Hussain play a Gujarati businessman who believes that once physical wealth is accumulated, happiness will follow, but this proves not to be the case. Paresh Rawal plays the titular storyteller. The film is based on a story by the late, great Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray and contrasts the pursuit of material wealth with that of intellectual knowledge. Hussain, co-star Tannishtha Chatterjee and Mahadevan are expected to be on hand for Q&A sessions on June 22 at BFI Southbank and on June 23 at MAC Birmingham.

Ed Ames, whose long career included hit recordings, TV stardom, and Broadway roles, died May 21 in Los Angeles at 95. No cause was given.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor Ed Ames, a member of the Ames Brothers singing quartet who starred in TV series “Daniel Boone” in the 1960s, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 95. Ed Ames and his brothers Vic, Joe and Gene had a hit with their version of “Rag Mop” in 1950. As a solo artist, he had hits with “Who Will Answer?,” “My Cup Runneth Over” and “Try to Remember.” In the 1950s, they had a syndicated TV program “The Ames Brothers Show” and had 49 songs that charted before they broke up in 1963. He then launched an acting career, which included off-Broadway performances in “The Crucible” and “The Fantasticks,” as well as a starring role on Broadway in “Carnival!” He starred with Kirk Douglas, Gene Wilder and William Daniels in the Broadway production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

EXCLUSIVE: India’s Zee Studios and Roy Kapur Films are collaborating on an action thriller featuring Shahid Kapoor in the lead. 

Cannes Film Festival comes to a close on Saturday and you can feel it. Things are starting to slow down, standing ovations aren’t as long and those on the Croisette are starting to get tired. Beloved filmmaker Wes Anderson debuted his latest feature, “Asteroid City,” on Wednesday and the reaction was more muted than the reception to “Killers of the Flower Moon” or even the more mixed “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” TheWrap’s Steve Pond emphasized the whole did not live up to the sum of its parts, despite pristine craft as always.

Naman Ramachandran “Lioness,” an official Indo-U.K. co-production being made under the 2008 bilateral treaty, will star Aditi Rao Hydari (“Jubilee”) and Paige Sandhu (“Emmerdale”), it was revealed at the Cannes India pavilion on Tuesday. Written and to be directed by Kajri Babbar (“Khoj”), the film is inspired by the research of Peter Bance, the historian who wrote about Princess Sophia Duleep, one of the key leaders of the suffragette movement in the U.K., the Princess of Punjab, granddaughter of Maharajah Ranjit Singh and the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. The film will tell the story of two British Punjabi women living in the U.K., a century apart. While Sophia’s story is rooted in history, the second story is a fictional tale of Mehak Kaur an educated, married immigrant woman living in 1990’s Southall.

Historical feature film Lioness, starring Aditi Rao Hydari (Jubilee) and Paige Sandhu (Emmerdale), has been set as the first official India-UK co-production under a treaty signed in 2008. 

Naman Ramachandran Sony Pictures Television (SPT) has revealed a raft of global sales on “Twisted Metal,” “The Winter King” and “Ten Pound Poms,” which will be screened to international clients this week during the LA Screenings market. Based on the PlayStation game series and starring Anthony Mackie and Stephanie Beatriz, action-comedy drama “Twisted Metal” has sold to India (SonyLIV); New Zealand (TVNZ); Australia (Stan); the Middle East (BeIN); Central and Eastern Europe (HBO and HBO Max) and across sub-Saharan Africa on MNET’s Showmax. The series will have its world premiere on Peacock in the U.S. on June 27. “The Winter King,” the King Arthur tale based on the novels by Bernard Cornwell, produced by SPT-backed Bad Wolf, and co-commissioned by ITVX for the U.K. and MGM+ in the U.S., has been acquired for the Middle East by BeIN, in India (SonyLIV) and in Australia (Stan). The cast includes Iain De Caestecker, Ellie James and Eddie Marsan.

Sony Pictures Television has pre-sold Twisted Metal, The Winter King and Ten Pound Poms to international buyers as the LA Screenings gets underway.

EXCLUSIVE: The Into the Wild actor and the star of TNT’s I Am the Night are boarding the feature Degenerate, we hear.

Naman Ramachandran South Asian focused streamer ZEE5 has unveiled a 111-strong 2023 slate on the occasion of its fifth anniversary. The lineup is across the Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bangla, Punjabi and Marathi languages. The content is from top producers including Dharma Productions, Salman Khan Films, Oscar winner Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment, Bhanushali Studios, The Viral Fever, Applause Entertainment, Rose Audio Visuals, Vikas Bahl, Vivek Agnihotri, Nagraj Manjule and Sudhir Mishra. A-list performers in the shows and films include Manoj Bajpayee, Pankaj Tripathi, Huma Qureshi, Arya, Parambrata Chatterjee, Vijay Sethupathi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte.

Sony Pictures Classics announced today they have acquired all rights in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Scandinavia, India, Middle East, Turkey, Southeast Asia (excluding Taiwan and South Korea) and airlines within those territories to Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s upcoming Bossa Nova-themed animated film, “They Shot the Piano Player.” Sony Classics plans to release the film at the end of the year to qualify for year-end awards consideration.A true international production, the film is produced by Cristina Huete of Trueba PC (“Chico & Rita”) in Spain, along with Serge Lalou for Les Films d’Ici (“Josep”) in France, Janneke van de Kerkhof for Submarine Sublime (“Buñuel in the Labyrinth of Turtles”) in the Netherlands, and Humberto Santana in Portugal. It is executive produced by Nano Arrieta of Atlantika and Fabien Westerhoff of Film Constellation.From Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, who previously directed the Oscar-nominated “Chico & Rita,” “They Shot the Piano Player” is narrated by Jeff Goldblum.

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up rights to the animated feature They Shot the Piano Player for the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Scandinavia, India, the Middle East, Turkey, Southeast Asia (excluding Taiwan and South Korea) and airlines within the aforementioned territories. The film from Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, two of the directors behind the Oscar-nominated animated feature Chico and Rita, is set up for a fall awards push from SPC.

Naman Ramachandran Indian auteur Aribam Syam Sharma’s “Ishanou,” which screened at the Un Certain Regard strand at Cannes in 1991 is returning to the Croisette in a restored version. The Manipuri-language film is the only Indian film at the festival’s Cannes Classics section this year. “Ishanou” (“The Chosen One”), follows Tampha, a young woman with a loving husband and a small daughter, who leads a tranquil existence in the Manipur valley and is occupied with the mundane details of life. Suddenly she begins to behave in a strange manner, talking to flowers, becoming afflicted with dizzy spells and wandering out of the house in the dark of the night. The family tries to find a cure for her malady and finally realize that she does not have a sickness, but rather is responding to the call of a deity who has chosen her.

Naman Ramachandran India’s Richa Chadha and the U.K.’s William Moseley will headline the cast of India-U.K. co-production “Aaina.” The film, set between London and India, is a drama about the impact of the cycle of violence, both within cultures and on human beings in the form of PTSD. It marks the feature directorial debut of Markus Meedt, who previously directed several acclaimed shorts, including “Shelter” and “Anonymous” and episodes of mini-series “Let’s Get Macho.” Chadha starred in “Gangs of Wasseypur” and “Masaan,” both of which debuted at Cannes. She was most recently in Disney+ Hotstar series “The Great Indian Murder.” Moseley made a mark as a child actor in the Narnia franchise. He was one of the leads in “Land of Dreams,” which debuted at Venice, and was also in Indian film “Margarita With A Straw,” which had festival play at Toronto, Busan and London.

Naman Ramachandran Indian multiplex chains PVR and Inox, which merged earlier this year, have launched a combined distribution arm PVR Inox Pictures, formerly PVR Pictures, “to increase investments in content acquisition to streamline high quality content for the Indian market, generate further opportunity for underrepresented storytellers and independent creators, and deliver a robust content slate to the Indian audience.” PVR Inox operates a network of 1689 cinema screens in 361 properties across 115 cities in India and Sri Lanka, and holds 43% share of multiplex screens in India. PVR Inox Pictures is the largest independent distributor of foreign language films and a prominent distributor of Indian films, in India.

Zendaya and Tom Holland took their love to Italy, where they showed off some sweet PDA. The stars traveled to Venice and were spotted sharing a few special moments on a boat.Zendaya and Tom, both 26, looked relaxed as they dressed casually for the occasion.