Two Breaking Bad-style labs found four arrested, guns, cash, seized as police smash lethal racket in fake prescription drugs

Covid Puts Paid To Shanghai Fest At Eleventh Hour

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChina’s most prestigious film festival, the Shanghai International Film Festival has officially been canceled for this year. The festival is normally held in mid-June.The 25th edition of the festival will instead be held next year in 2023.The decision to cancel this year’s festival outright is an sign of the continuing difficulties under which the film industry is currently operating in China.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“My Blue Summer,” a local romance led the Chinese box office higher over the latest weekend with a modestly respectable $7.2 million (RMB48.2 million) opening session. But the trend is hard to discern due to continually changing COVID conditions in China and the country’s uncertain economic direction.The nationwide Friday to Sunday box office total was $26.7 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. The total was more than double the $11.5 million achieved the previous weekend.The performance was goosed by the Dragon Boat Holiday weekend, operating June 3-5.

Guns N’ Roses kicked off their 2022 live schedule last night (June 4) by performing an AC/DC cover and two rarities.The band were performing at the Passeio Marítimo de Algés in Oeiras in Portugal last night, which marked their first gig of the year after a scheduled performance at Florida’s Welcome To Rockville festival was cancelled due to storms last month.During the Portuguese gig, Guns N’ Roses gave a rendition of their 1986 song ‘Reckless Life’, which originally appeared on their record ‘Live ?!*@ Like A Suicide’. It was the first time the band had played the track since 1993.Later, they added to the clutch of AC/DC songs they’ve covered at their gigs with a take on ‘Walk All Over You’, while the encore featured the ‘Appetite Of Destruction’ version of ‘You’re Crazy’.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterTom Cruise’s star-spangled blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick” capped off Memorial Day weekend with a box office debut for record books. The sequel, which sees Cruise return to the cockpit after 36 years, collected $156 million in its first four days of release.Those ticket sales were enough to overtake Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” which launched with $153 million over the long weekend in 2007, as the biggest Memorial Day debut in history.Paramount and Skydance had originally expected “Top Gun: Maverick” to finish the long weekend with $151 million, but the film had a better-than-expected turnout on Sunday, pushing the three-day haul to $126 million.

Tom Cruise earned the biggest movie launch of his career with "Top Gun: Maverick," bringing in a projected $151 million at the box office during Memorial Day weekend. The Paramount film, which was delayed multiple times due to the coronavirus pandemic, now holds the record for the second-best Memorial Day opening of all time behind Johnny Depp’s "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End," which earned $153 million when it was released in 2007.

Everything Everywhere All At Once has broken a US box office record for indie studio A24.The ambitious, multi-dimensional martial arts film, direct by The Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), overtook Uncut Gems as the studio’s highest-grossing movie ever, making $52,263,484 (£41,829,079) at the US domestic box office after the weekend.The Michelle Yeoh-starring film could be on course to overtake Ari Aster’s horror movie Hereditary as A24’s highest-grossing movie worldwide ($80million) – especially as it still hasn’t opened in all international markets yet, even after its delayed release in UK and Ireland cinemas on May 13.Yeoh plays Evelyn Wang in the film, a mother thrown into a sci-fi action-adventure – alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephanie Hsu and Ke Huy Quan – after she learns she’s able to access the memory and skills of alternate versions of herself throughout the multiverse.Watch the trailer for Everything Everywhere All At Once below.Earlier this month (May 13), Yeoh said she texted Jackie Chan teasing him about turning down the lead role.The martial arts legend was originally envisioned by Scheinert and Kwan as playing Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s main character. However, when he said he was unavailable, they rewrote the part for Yeoh.“Jackie actually texted me,” she told the Guardian about his response to the film.

A man was shot to death in his back garden after a rival was humiliated in an online video.

A woman who spent years looking for an eccentric millionaire's buried treasure was left 'distraught' after it was found by another hunter - just 20 feet away from where she had searched.

Saweetie shares her experience with racism.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent“Lost And Found” has closed first sales to Italy (Eagle Pictures), France (KMBO) and Taiwan (Creative Century Entertainment) on thriller “Lost and Found,” starring Álvaro Morte, “Money Heist’s” Professor, and directed by “The Head” helmer Jorge Dorado.The caliber of the distributors – Eagle Pictures is one of Italy’s most muscular mainstream buyers, for instance – and the movie’s high-profile talent package confirm “Lost and Found” as a preeminent title in Spain’s currently most exportable product line: Upscale ambitious thrillers with a social-issue underbelly.Filmax, “Lost and Found’s” sales company, screened a promo at Berlin’s European Film Market. The first sales news comes just before the film’s first market screening at a private event at Cannes.

MiHoYo has revealed the newest character who will be joining the Genshin Impact roster soon.As usual, the developer took to Twitter today (May 16) to announce the latest addition to the free-to-play role-playing game (RPG), revealing the official artwork for the character, Doushin Shikanoin.So far, it’s been confirmed that Doushin Shikanoin will wield the Anemo Vision – one of seven elemental abilities in the game – along with a sword. Shikanoin is described as a young detective from the Tenryou Commission located in the region of Inazuma, and is “free-spirited and unruly, but cheerful and lively.”"Doushin Shikanoin has admirable wit and insight.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe mainland China box office remained moribund over the latest weekend, lacking direction or new releases and achieving nationwide revenue of just $11.4 million.The country is continuing to suffer from clusters of COVID infections that have caused mass lockdowns in some cities and the temporary closure of many cinemas. Even as there is now talk of easing restrictions in Shanghai, which had been locked down for five weeks, there is the prospect of new restrictions in capital city Beijing. The government has also imposed a blanket ban on all but essential overseas travel.U.S.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterDisney has previously revealed it has 500 shows in the pipeline outside of the U.S., but on Wednesday, the company broke down for the first time how those planned local-language programs are being dispersed throughout global regions.According to Christine M. McCarthy, senior executive vice president and chief financial officer, 140 of those shows are in the works in the Asia/Pacific region, including Southeast Asia; 150 are in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) territories); 100 are set up in India; and 200 are being developed for Latin America.Click here to sign up for Variety‘s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial and investment news, and more.Elsewhere on the call, CEO Bob Chapek was pressed by analysts on another international topic: Disney’s lack of traction in recent months with getting its movies approved for release in China.

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong authorities arrested a Roman Catholic cardinal, a singer and at least two others on Wednesday on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces to endanger China's national security, reports said.Cardinal Joseph Zen, singer-actress Denise Ho, lawyer Margaret Ng and scholar Hui Po-keung were detained by Hong Kong’s National Security Police, the U.K.-based human rights group Hong Kong Watch said.The arrests were apparently related to their roles as trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which provided legal aid to people who took part in 2019 pro-democracy protests that were quashed by security forces, the group said. The fund closed in 2021, it said.Scores of pro-democracy activists have been arrested under a sweeping National Security Law imposed on the city by Beijing in 2020 following the demonstrations.

Joe Leydon Film CriticViewed with 20/20 hindsight, all of history appears inevitable simply because it went to the trouble of happening. More than four decades after it defied skeptics, entertained millions, and hit the No.