Taiwan’s Muse Acquires Anime ‘Dan Da Dan’ for Asia Distribution

Disney’s Freaky Friday sequel, teased for a number of years, is finally a go movie, Deadline has confirmed, as the project has found its director in Nisha Ganatra (Late Night), with stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in talks to return.

Jeff Benjamin Yoshiki’s involvement in philanthropy encompasses a diverse range of causes, with his family and upbringing being core influences. “I lost my father when I was young,” Yoshiki says. “He actually took his own life.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Dahomey,” the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning film helmed by French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, has been sold to a raft of international territories by Les Films du Losange. Along with being acquired by Mubi in key markets, “Dahomey” has been acquired in Australia & New Zealand (Rialto), China (Hugoeast), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Greece (One From the Heart), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainement), Benelux (Cinéart), Bulgaria (Beta Films), Ex-Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Mozinet), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Romania (Voodoo), Baltic Countries (Taip Toliau), Poland (New Horizons), Ukraine (Kyivmusicfilm), Taiwan (Joint Entertainment), Indonesia (PT Falcon) and Sudu Connexion in Africa.

Manchester Airport has announced the launch of a direct route to Shanghai, the first service to operate to the Chinese city from the north. Juneyao Air has chosen Manchester as its first destination in the UK in a move that’s been hailed as “fantastic news” by regional leaders.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Osaka-based Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation will launch ytv animation, a new brand that will leverage Yomiuri TV’s long history in animation, while also undertaking more challenging titles. The move comes a day ahead of the Anime Japan 2024 convention being held at Tokyo Big Sight. It also comes “ahead of the 60th anniversary in 2027 of Yomiuri TV’s airing of ‘Golden Bat’ in 1967,” the company said. “We will leverage our nearly 60 years of experience producing and broadcasting anime to bring exciting titles to our fans,” said ytv animation producer in a prepared statement.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Underscoring the growing ties between France and Taiwan in the film and television sector, French and Taiwanese producers CinéFrance, Alef One and Yoosonn Entertainment have presented two new series co-productions at Series Mania. “Fly,” co-produced by Paris-based CinéFrance and Taipei’s Yoosonn Entertainment, is a spy drama series adapted from Taiwanese author Chang Kuo-Li’s original IP that is set to shoot in France and Taiwan.

EXCLUSIVE: Greenwich Entertainment has acquired rights to the narrative-doc hybrid Starring Jerry As Himself, which won both the Audience and Jury Award at Slamdance 2023, from Visit Films, slating it for release in select theaters and on home entertainment platforms beginning in late summer.

TikTok‘s availability in the US if its parent company doesn’t sell it.On March 1, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 24 to 16 to give President Joe Biden the power to enforce a ban on the social media app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. If the ban goes through, it will be the biggest restriction of a social media app in American history.Now, the House of Representatives has passed that bill, stipulating that if ByteDance doesn’t sell, TikTok would be banned across the US.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sales agency Utopia Docs has shared the international trailer in exclusivity with Variety for “Canuto’s Transformation,” winner of the best film and outstanding artistic contribution awards in the Envision section of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. After IDFA, the film was selected at ​Taiwan Documentary Festival​, Cinelatino Toulouse, Jean Rouch Film Festival and Tempo Doc Fest.

Naman Ramachandran Korean action drama “A Shop For Killers” has become the most viewed local original on Disney+ in the Asia Pacific region (Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines) so far in 2024, the streamer has revealed. Set in contemporary Korea, the eight-part series follows college student Jeong Jian who dives for cover in her childhood home after a series of highly skilled assassins come after her.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Escaping Man,” a Chinese drama feature about a man dragged into a kidnap plot, heads the FilMart slate of Hong Kong-based sales agency Autumn Sun Company. The protagonist is a man who spent 20 years in jail after being falsely accused of rape. After his release, he intends to confront the woman, but instead falls for her again — to the point that she is able to manipulate him into kidnapping the child for which she is the nanny.

Screenworks Asia, the production subsidiary of Taiwan’s Catchplay, has acquired international sales rights to the horror anthology series Urban Horror and will present the show at this week’s Filmart in Hong Kong.

After stints heading local-language production at Disney APAC and HBO Asia, Hong Kong-based Jessica Kam-Engle is now heading CreAsia Studio, a new Banijay Asia venture in Southeast Asia, in the role of EVP & Business Head.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Taipei-based Screenworks Asia has picked up innovative anthology series “Urban Horror” for international sales ahead of this week’s FilMart in Hong Kong. Directed by Lee Chun-Hong (“Mom, Don’t Do That!”), Chen Bao-Zhong and Huang Dan-Chi, a group of young and upcoming filmmakers, “Urban Horror” comprises 34 short episodes revolving around the mysterious, the unexplained and the disturbed. They make use of six modern city settings, such as night clubs, office buildings, youth hostels and other places where ghosts and monsters are not normally found. The deliberately limited number of locations also enables the 34 short films to be re-packaged as six longer episodes. In each episode, the audience will see a familiar face that could be an award-winning actor, a pop star, or an internet celebrity.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Los caminantes de la calle,” directed by Argentina’s Juan Martín Hsu, Chilean Ignacio Pávez’s docu-fiction drama “An Amputee” and Uruguayan Lorenzo Tocco’s “For God’s Sake” proved the biggest winners at the Malaga Festival’s MAFIZ industry area awards, announced at a ceremony on Friday night. Covering Malaga’s Work in Progress showcase, its Málaga Festival Fund Co-Production forum (MAFF) and the Spanish Screenings Content – Málaga Short Corner, prizes were divvied up among a slew of titles, with ‘Sometimes,’ by Sara Fantova and Enrique Buleo’s ‘Still Life With Ghosts,’ both scoring multiple awards. From his first feature, 2015’s “La Salada,” a patchwork narrative tale of immigrants’ lives, dreams and suffering in Argentina, to 2021’s “La Luna Reprenta Mi Corazon,” a docu feature record of the rencounter with his mother in Taiwan, Hsu has carved out a niche depicting the immigrant experience in Argentina.

Taylor Swift’s concerts without tickets.The incidents took place last Monday (February 26), during the third of the pop icon’s six sold-out shows in the South East Asian city-state.According to reports by outlets including The Independent and BBC News, one man allegedly distracted security staff by talking to them, while another held onto a turnstile to let three fans in.A third man who was arrested is under investigation and has yet to be charged, Singapore police said in a statement on Tuesday (March 5).Singapore has some of the strictest laws in the world, and anyone convicted of cheating faces a sentence of up to three years in jail.The shows, held as part of Swift’s mammoth ‘Eras’ tour, were in particularly high demand when the pop icon visited Singapore, as they marked the only stop in the region. Tickets sold out months before the live shows took place.According to the various outlets, one of the three men that the group snuck into the show was Chinese influencer Yang Junhao, who alleged that he unknowingly bought fake tickets.“This is me after being told I bought fake tickets, and was brought out [of the concert] to be interrogated by the police,” he reportedly told his followers in a video posted to Douyin, China’s version of TikTok (via BBC).

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent MALAGA — Dark Star Pictures, the L..A.-based distribution company, has secured North America distribution rights to “On the Go,” which showcases the acting talents of “Elite’s” Omar Ayuso, here playing a Grindr addict with vengeance in his heart. Celebrating its world premiere at last August’s Locarno Film Festival, “On the Go” was acquired for world sales in the run-up to the Swiss festival by Paris-based MPM Premium.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST N8, the film and TV sales venture formed by U.S.-based EST and Thailand’s N8 company, has hired Chatsuree ‘Chat’ Sripamorn for an Asian sales roles. Reporting to Tenten Wei, she will represent the company at next week’s FilMart. Sripamorn has previously worked at three of the top Thai entertainment companies Mono Next, GMM Studios and Rose Studio over a span of ten years.

EXCLUSIVE: UK distributor Trinity CineAsia has acquired UK rights to Norris Wong’s The Lyricist Wannabe from Hong Kong’s Edko Films and is planning a theatrical release on March 15. 

Taking place alongside Filmart, the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) is one of Asia’s oldest and most established project markets, helping a string of award-winning films to get made.