Tencent Renews Growth Path in Music and Games, But Loses Ground in Streaming Video

A version of this story about “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed” first appeared in the Race Begins issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.The latest installment in the HBO Max Music Box series created by Bill Simmons, “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed” finds director Sam Jones (“Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off,” “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco”) following the writing and recording of singer Jason Isbell’s 2020 album “Reunions.” But the film is about far more than one of the gifted musician and writer’s best albums, delving into his self-destructive days with drugs and alcohol and his marriage to fellow singer Amanda Shires, a charged creative and personal partnership that nearly fell apart while Jones’ cameras were rolling.Sam, why a film about Jason Isbell?Sam Jones: He was on my interview show (“Off Camera With Sam Jones”), and once I chatted with him, I felt like not only did he have an interesting story, but he was good at telling it. So I flew to Nashville and I asked him a couple hours before he went on stage at the Ryman.

All social media users have been issued a stark warning from Lloyds Bank over the £570 lost per person to shopping scams.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, June 9 to 18, has unveiled the titles in contention for awards in its four main feature-length sections: main competition, Asian New Talent, Animation film and documentary. These are eligible for the festival’s prestigious Golden Goblet Awards, winners of which will be announced at the Shanghai Grand Theater on the evening of June 17. While SIFF remains the only mainland China festival to be accredited as a so-called A-list event by the International Federation of Film Producers (FIAPF), its selections are largely separate and distinct from those at other major international festivals.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China’s NetEase Games has established PinCool, a Tokyo-based game studio focused on developing titles for game consoles. That is a significant diversification, considering that PC and mobile are the major formats for games play in China. And the company says the company it will also be involved in planning and producing a range of additional forms of entertainment. The new company is headed by representative director and president Ichimura Ryutaro, a 20-year veteran of the games industry and long-time producer of the “Dragon Quest” games franchise. Beyond serving as lead producer for games such as “Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King” and “Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies,” Ichimura also led other areas of the Dragon Quest IP franchise including live events and exhibitions.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Fast X” predictably won a second weekend on top of the mainland China box office, driving its total past the $100 million mark. But the disappointing start for Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” was the bigger talking point. “Fast X” earned $17.6 million in China according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That was a 66% drop compared with its opening weekend, but still gave the film a $110 million cumulative after 12 days and has caused estimates to be further revised upwards. Ticketing agency Maoyan is now forecasting that the film will finish with RMB880 million ($126 million), having previously predicted RMB728 million ($104 million), and then RMB840 million.

A question comes up part of the way through Ric Roman Waugh’s “Kandahar” that the film can’t find an answer for: Is this a Sad Dad Gerard Butler action picture or a Gritty Dad Gerard Butler action picture? Either way, he’s a dad, but in Sad Dad Butler films, that’s a feature; in Gritty Dad Butler films, it’s window dressing. “Kandahar” isn’t quite one or the other.

Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin and was the father of Spike Lee, has died aged 94.The musician died at his Brooklyn home yesterday (May 24), according to a publicist for Spike Lee, confirmed to The New York Times.

Director Ric Roman Waugh’s drab film fumbles and grumbles through Iran, the United Arab Emirates and eventually Afghanistan as the hunt for CIA Agent Tom Harris (Butler) intensifies. “Kandahar,” to its credit, aspires to be deep. Geopolitics come up, as does the Taliban’s mangled interpretation of the Quran, along with ISIS and other aftershocks of American wars in the Middle East.Really, though, it is just another tiresome and impenetrably brooding Gerard Butler movie in which no event seems to matter any more than the next one — and grimaces are mistaken for drama. Before ho-hum Harris goes on the run, he is posing as a utility worker in Iran while attempting to destroy a nuclear plant.

Kandahar is the latest from director Rick Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen, Greenland), starring frequent collaborator Gerard Butler, along with Travis Fimmel, Navid Negahban, Ali Fazal, and Bahador Foladi in an action drama that lacks imagination. With the script penned by Mitchell LaFortune, these particular types of stories often suffer from narrative sameness: westerner travels to the Middle East, things go boom, westerner saves the day, the end. 

good for the movie, but we used it in away that wasn’t bad.”Another benefit of the Wes-world troupe was music. In the film, a band of cowboys led by Ruper Friend plays a few songs, and for the band members Anderson also cast Brazilian musician Seu Jorge, who notably did some Portuguese David Bowie covers in Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” and Jarvis Cocker, leader of the ’90s British band Pulp. “Seu Jorge might bring his guitar and sing a few songs after dinner, or other people you wouldn’t expect might get up and perform as well.”At the press conference, Bryan Cranston pointed out that the movie manages to combine a lot of different kinds of performance into one quintessential Anderson mixture.

Netflix will send out emails to thousands of Netflix users today, warning them that they may lose access to their accounts.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Mainland Chinese star Wang Luodan (“The Dead End,” “Struggle,” “The Continent”) and Hong Kong-born Bosco Wong (“Lives of Omission,” “Triumph In The Skies”) head the cast of “My Dearest Stranger.” The high-end suspense drama series is a production fronted by mainland Chinese distributor-producer Hishow Entertainment, which announced the production at the Cannes Market, adjacent to the Cannes Film Festival in France. Based on the best-selling novel “Secret Love,” by Fan Shu and adapted by renowned screenwriter Cao Xueping (“Game Changer”), “My Dearest Stranger” tells a compelling story of Yu Xiao, a housewife who realizes her seemingly perfect husband may have a dark side. Yu decides to cooperate with policeman Song Cheng to find out the truth, while trying to keep her own secrets from the world.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “In Our Day,” the film by South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo which closes the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes film festival, has seen distributors in multiple territories move early to strike rights deals. French rights were picked up by Capricci), Spanish rights by L’Atalante Cinema and Greek rights by Ama Films. The film has its official premiere on May 25. Seoul-based Finecut has long been the sales agent for Hong’s plentiful output. In addition to the deals on “In Our Day,” Finecut signed agreements with L’Atalante, with France’s Ariona Films and Taiwan’s Cola Films for “In Water,” Hong’s first film of 2023 which premiered in the Encounters section in Berlin in February. The film was previously sold to Cinema Guild for North America.

Ariana Madix is mourning a major loss.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Returning as an in-person event after cancelation last year, the Shanghai International Film Festival has set out an agenda with a clear focus on China. The festival (June 9-16) will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s economic outreach and development program. With a series of press conferences and film culture roundtables, the SIFF’s Belt and Road Film Week will “bring together old friends of the alliance from previous years and new friends made this year [..] and announce an action plan for the future.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The premium end of the streaming video sector in India is poised for shake-up, with Reliance Industries’ JioCinema challenging the SVOD dominance of Disney+ Hotstar, new research suggests. “The India Online Video Report: Analysis of Consumption, Content & Investment Trends,” from Singapore-based Media Partners Asia, shows total consumption across the online video sector reached 6.1 trillion minutes for the 15-month period from Jan 2022 to Mar 2023. Within that period, the SVOD, AVOD and freemium platforms accounted for some 12% of viewing time, up from 10% in 2021. Social services such as YouTube and TikTok accounted for 88% of viewing time.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Net profits at Tencent Music Entertainment, China’s largest digital music operation, grew by 89% in the first quarter of the new year, hitting RMB1.15 billion ($167 million), even as revenue progressed by only 5% to RMB7.0 billion ($1.02 billion). The group, which is backed by Chinese tech and entertainment giant Tencent and has stock market listings on the New York Stock Exchange and in Hong Kong, controls large equity stakes in Spotify and (in a consortium with Tencent) Universal Music Group. Its own music operations divide loosely into two clusters: mass market music streaming, with paid-for and free tiers; and “social entertainment,” including karaoke and other derivative products.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Distribution Workshop has picked up international sales duties on “A Legend,” the Jackie Chan -starring film.As previously reported, the film is now in production. “A Legend” is now pitched as a $50 million sequel to the 2005 action romance “The Myth” that involved both Chan and director Stanley Tong. In previous communication, producer Bona Film Group said that the film was inspired by the earlier film. The new picture will be the tenth time that Chan and Tong have worked together, following other titles that include “Police Story 3,” “Supercop” and “Vanguard.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Hong Kong Disneyland theme park managed a 22% increase in visitor numbers in its most recent financial year allowing it to modestly reduce its annual losses. The park, which is jointly owned by the Hong Kong government and Walt Disney, with the government holding a narrow majority, reports a financial year to the end of September – and does so more than seven months in arrears. It has been loss-making for the past eight financial years and has made profits in only three years since its opening in 2005. The 2021-2022 financial year was again complicated by the city’s strict anti-COVID restrictions. It was fully closed for three and a half months (longer than the previous financial year) and operated under other social distancing and pandemic measures. Additionally, inbound tourism was heavily curtailed, especially from mainland China. That meant that during the reporting period, the park and hotels were largely visited by locals only.

Preparing for the arrival of her first child in August, Laura Anderson has her baby name ready to go. The former Love Island star is expecting a baby girl with her ex Gary Lucy and exclusively told OK! they chose the "traditional" name for their baby girl early on in her pregnancy. And although she's keeping the name under wraps, she did reveal her baby won't be named after a "Disney" character.