‘The Elephant Odyssey’: IMAX, Beach House & China Review Studio Team For Feature Documentary

Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is off and running overseas with a $39.8M cume through Thursday in 48 international box office markets. This includes Wednesday openings in some markets and a strong paid preview program. With domestic’s Wednesday/Thursday plus previews, that brings the global total on the Tom Cruise-starrer to $$63.6M through yesterday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Specialty distributor, Trinity CineAsia is releasing China’s summer blockbuster “Lost in the Stars” in the U.K and Ireland on some 30 screens from Friday. “I was fortunate to watch the film when it opened in China and once I saw it I just knew we had to have it,” said Cedric Behrel “‘Lost In The Stars’ is a very clever, uncanny thrill of a ride that harks back to classic Hitchcock and any noteworthy thriller since – the master himself had in fact once optioned the rights to the same story. We organized the fastest turnaround premiere known to man and we’ve been delighted by the reactions to the early previews. It epitomizes the best of what new Chinese cinema can bring to audiences.”

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic When you go to a movie called “The Modelizer,” you tend to assume certain things about your protagonist: that he’ll be a smooth-talking pricelessly well-dressed cad, one who values women too much for certain assets (their looks) and not enough for others (everything else), and that the film will be engineered to give him a comeuppance. All that is true of “The Modelizer.” What you don’t expect is that the movie, in this case, is going to take all that sexist-swinger-as-master-of-the-universe stuff and put it on steroids. “The Modelizer” is set in Hong Kong, which the movie keeps reminding us is the most expensive city in the world. The hero, Shawn Koo (Byron Mann), is the scion of an outrageously wealthy Chinese real-estate family; they own one-third of the property in the city. Shawn, who sees each of his parents once a month and serves as their company’s managing director (basically a show title, since they control everything), lives a life of carefree jet-set hedonism, dating a different fashion model every week.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Jane Campion, Laura Poitras, Mia Hansen-Løve and Martin McDonagh are among high-caliber members of the Venice Film Festival’s main jury. The prominent directors, most of whom are Venice regulars – Poitras last year scored the Golden Lion with documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” – will be joined on the Venice jury panel by Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (“Wajib”); Chinese star Shu Qi (“The Assassin”); Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, who was at Venice last year with “Freaks Out”; and Argentinian auteur Santiago Mitre whose “Argentina, 1985” also launched from the Lido last year. They will join Damien Chazelle who – as previously announced – will serve as president of the Venice competition jury. 

Sophia Sun Intern Actor, director and screenwriter Chen Sicheng is one of the giants of contemporary Chinese cinema. His three “Detective Chinatown” films have earned more than $1.2 billion of box office revenue, and Chen is the producing force behind another major franchise, “Sheep Without a Shepherd,” adapted from the Indian “Drishyam” films. “Lost in the Stars,” Chen’s latest effort, this time as producer and screenwriter, is another megahit. Co-directed by Cui Rui and Liu Xiang, “Lost in the Stars” has grossed $430 million (RMB3.08 billion) in China – enough to make it the seventh-biggest film worldwide this year and the 14th biggest film of all time in China – all in the span of just 17 days.

Emily Blunt and Matt Damon are reuniting in, director Christopher Nolan's new epic, which stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who led the Manhattan Project during World War II and is often credited as «the father of the atomic bomb.»Oppenheimer's life and work was full of complex characters, and Nolan has assembled a star-studded cast to tell the complicated story. Blunt stars as Katherine «Kitty» Oppenheimer, who was a German-American biologist and botanist and a member of the Communist Party of America, in addition to being Oppenheimer's wife.

They are the symbols of a town moving from an industrial past to a vibrant new future.

Adele Lim isn’t stopping to the haters’ level.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Of all the impressive skills Barbie has amassed in her 64 years as a working doll, who knew that cartography would be a focal point of her highly anticipated summer movie debut? But here we are. Trailers for the upcoming “Barbie,” from director Greta Gerwig and Warner Bros. Pictures, have led to the dissemination of a controversial map used in the film – one depicted in a scene with stars Margot Robbie and Kate McKinnon (known in the film as “Weird Barbie”) — and the studio is speaking up after days of international headlines. “The map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing,” a spokesperson for the Warner Bros. Film Group told Variety. “The doodles depict Barbie’s make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the ‘real world.’ It was not intended to make any type of statement.”

banned in Vietnam for apparently featuring a map showing China’s claims to the South China Sea that many say includes the territory of other nations.When asked about the controversy during a press conference on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning was dismissive of Hanoi’s outrage.“China’s position on the South China Sea issue is clear and consistent,” the official said, adding that Vietnam “should not link the South China Sea issue with normal cultural exchange.”The nine-dash line shown on the map represents China’s claim to a vast section of the disputed waters, which are also being fought over by Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan.An international tribunal at The Hague found the Chinese Communist Party’s map illegal. Beijing dismissed the ruling at the time.The map’s inclusion in “Barbie” underscores the growing controversy over Hollywood’s reliance on China, which has rivaled the US for its biggest market in recent years.

Barbie because the film includes the “nine dash line map” that depicts islands in the South China Sea as being controlled by Beijing.Vi Kien Thanh, director general of the Vietnam Cinema Department under the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, announced that Barbie will not be allowed to commercially screen in the nation, as ruled by the National Film Evaluation Council.“We do not grant license for the American movie ‘Barbie’ to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line,” the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper stated, citing Thanh (via Variety).The move follows Vietnam banning previous films including Uncharted and Abominable over the same issue.In 2016 the UN ruled unanimously against the validity of the “nine dash line” map, however China responded by saying that it doesn’t recognise the UN’s decision.Meanwhile, in other recent Barbie news, Margot Robbie has revealed the one request she made to director Greta Gerwig before filming the new movie.Set for release on July 21, Gerwig’s film stars Robbie in the titular role, with Ryan Gosling as Ken.Speaking about the film in an interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Robbie discussed how she fell in love with the character as a child when she was gifted a Barbie Dreamhouse for Christmas.Such was the impact the gift had on her, that she revealed she asked Gerwig to allow her to live out the real-life fantasy of the Dreamhouse in the film.“I’ll follow your vision. Whatever you want this Barbie movie to be, let’s do that,” she remembers telling the director.

the saga of the wandering Asian elephants in 2020 and 2021, while exploring the rarely-seen world of Yunnan, China. The 90-minute film, shot with Imax cameras and slated for release across the Imax network in 2024, is currently in production in China.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Production is now under way on “The Elephant Odyssey,” a major wildlife documentary film that will release in Imax theaters next year. The film, directed by Alice Gu, chronicles the highly unusual trek by a herd of elephants in China that began in early 2020. As the group diverted from their usual habitat and marched over 1,000 km (600 miles) across remote Yunnan Province they attracted global attention, including live-streamed drone footage. They raided grain stores, indulged in impromptu village feasts and messy mud fights, and even gave birth while on the road. Reasons for the herd’s 18-month trek are unclear, with wildlife experts variously pointing to climate change and the failure of conservation efforts.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chinese mystery drama “Lost in the Stars” expanded in its second week on release and gave China its third biggest box office weekend of the year. The film earned $117 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That was significantly up from its opening weekend of $70.7 million (RMB502 million) a week earlier and enough to make it the second biggest film on the planet, behind “Indiana Jones,” according to Comscore. After two weekends on release, it has accumulated $320 million. “Lost in the Stars” is a Chinese adaptation of a 1990 Russian movie “A Trap for the Lonely Man,” which itself was adapted from a Robert Thomas stage play. It sees a woman disappear while on an overseas trip with her husband. Just as mysteriously, she reappears at the moment that the search for her is running out of steam. But the man refuses to accept that she is the same woman and believes that she is an imposter.

Refresh for latest…: Disney/Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is off to a disappointing start with a $130M global opening. Of that, $70M is from 52 international box office markets as the the fifth installment in the beloved 42-year-old franchise came in below projections.

Fall Out Boy have released an updated version of Billy Joel’s song ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ in order to, I don’t know, highlight how lists are still a thing, or something.Joel’s original song was released as a single in 1989 and listed 118 people and events from politics, culture, science and sport that had proven notable between 1949, the year when Joel was born, and the year of the track’s release.So, your first verse goes like this: “Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television, North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe, Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom, Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye, Eisenhower, Vaccine, England’s got a new queen, Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye”.Anyway, it’s now 34 years since Joel released the song. So, to mark this, erm, milestone, Fall Out Boy have recorded a new version, listing significant things that have happened since 1989.

K.J. Yossman Louis Theroux will deliver this year’s James MacTaggart memorial lecture, the flagship address at the Edinburgh TV Festival. The documentary maker, who also founded unscripted production company Mindhouse in 2019, has examined everything from Scientology to porn to neo-Nazis in his films. He has also turned his hand to social media, podcasting and streaming. Theroux will address the challenges broadcasters face in today’s “multi-platform universe,” how he has maintained longevity after a quarter of a century in the broadcasting industry and the pros and cons of the tech revolution we are all living through.

Fall Out Boy have released an updated version of Billy Joel‘s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ with headlines from the past 30 years.Joel’s 1989 Number one hit, ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’, includes brief references to 118 significant political, cultural and scientific events between the years of Joel’s birth in 1949 and the song’s release in 1989.Today (June 28), Fall Out Boy shared a modernised version of the track, replacing the original lyrics with standout events from where the song left off in 1989 to 2023.“I thought about this song a lot when I was younger. All these important people and events – some that disappeared into the sands of time –others that changed the world forever,” shared the band on Twitter.“So much has happened in the span of the last 34 years – we felt like a little system update might be fun.

Ashley Park is sharing some insight into her  character. While speaking to ET's Denny Directo at the premiere of her new film, , Park said the role is a call back to her start in the acting business.«I don't think I'm allowed to say yet, but what I will say, if people know my roots of where I came from, they'll be happy in terms of how I started in this business,» Park, who was cast in season 3 of the hit Hulu series said.As for what you can expect from the show's third season, the  star said a lot of laughs from a group of legends.«I think what you can expect from season 3, is it's like, that cast with legends, and just the most gracious people,» she added of the star-studded cast, which added Meryl Streep, Jesse Williams and more to its roster for season 3.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chinese mystery drama “Lost in the Stars” was the top-grossing film on the planet over the latest weekend – despite playing only a single territory. The film earned $70.7 million (RMB502 million) between Friday and Sunday in mainland China, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That put it far and away ahead of other Chinese new releases and Hollywood’s holdovers “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” and “The Flash.” With the Dragon Boat Festival holiday occurring on Thursday, the film was given an unusual one-day advance on the normal releasing pattern in China. Including Thursday takings, the film made a total of $98.3 million (RMB968 million).