Universal Circling Gal Gadot ‘Cleopatra’ Epic; ‘Falcon And The Winter Soldier’s Kari Skogland Directing

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAfter soldiering through COVID with hybrid editions, South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) is getting ready to hold a scaled-up, largely in-person festival beginning Thursday, complete with a red-carpet opening ceremony and foreign visitors. But BiFan organizers say that the ground has moved under their feet.Variety spoke to producer Shin Chul, who once said he was tricked into becoming festival director, and BiFan head programmer Ellen Kim on the eve of the event.Festivals have had a tough time under COVID, but Korean entertainment has found new audiences. How do you explain that?Shin: For past two years the Korean entertainment industry experienced the deployment of a highway connected to the world.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area” has become Netflix’s latest Korean-made international hit. The Korean remake of “La Casa de Papel” (aka “Money Heist”) is in first place on the streaming giant’s Global Non-English top ten chart over the last week.The series premiered on Friday (June 24), meaning that it only had three days to claim its spot in chart that covers the period June 20-26.

Hallyu is an invented term used to describe the rising global popularity of Korean culture, but it also has never been more applicable in Hollywood than at this moment.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Top Gun Maverick” flew to the top of the box office charts in South Korea over the weekend, with a supersonic $9.6 million opening loop. It replaced “The Witch: Part 2 The Other One,” which had been top dog for only a week.Tom Cruise, a regular visitor to Korea, jetted into Seoul with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and co-stars Miles Teller, Glen Powell and Greg Tarzan Davis to goose the movie’s takeoff in the country. Cruise professed himself grateful for the fan’s warm reception and talked up the importance of in-person visits to the cinema.Sub-distributed in Korea by Lotte Entertainment, the film opened on Wednesday and played on more than 1,900 screens.

Gal Gadot’s infamous attempt to build solidarity during the pandemic just got a send-up from everyone’s favourite heroes.

It’s Friday and that can mean only one thing, folks: another edition of International Insider. Jesse Whittock here to take you through another week in film and TV.

Gal Gadot is spending another day on set of her upcoming movie.

EXCLUSIVE: Industry tech provider Deluxe has appointed former Netflix Korea exec Samantha Kim to the role of Managing Director, Business Development, APAC.

The Good Doctor is good TV.

Free Guy star continued. “When you’re making mistakes it’s easy to sort of be absorbed by shame and sort of this idea that you’ve done something wrong, but you also have to look at it critically and use it as a stepping stone to learning something profound.” BRB, writing that down.This content can also be viewed on the site it from.He added that his parenting mistakes, which he described as “brutal,” have taught him far more than his adventures in show business. But his first mistake-making role model was, of course, his own dad.

The cast of Top Gun: Maverick gathers together on the red carpet for a group shot at the premiere event held at Lotte World on Sunday (June 19) in Seoul, Korea.

aespa have shared a new teaser for the second episode of their ongoing SM Culture Universe series on YouTube.In the new trailer for the second SM Culture Universe episode, titled Next Level, the members of aespa have left the fictional universe of Kwangya in order to help nævis solve the ‘SYNK OUT’ phenomenon, in which the connection to the avatar æ had been severed.The full Next Level episode is scheduled for release on the official aespa YouTube channel next week on June 20, at 6pm KST.The series first launched with the release of its first episode, Black Mamba, last year, with the aim to establish and expand the background of SM Entertainment’s company-wide lore, centred in and around Kwangya.Meanwhile, aespa are also gearing up to return with their forthcoming sophomore mini-album ‘Girls’, for which they recently dropped the pre-release track ‘Illusion’. Due out on July 8, the new record is also set to feature the title track ‘Girls’, along with new songs ‘Lingo’ and ‘ICU’.Additionally, ’Girls’ will include the English-language track ‘Life’s Too Short’, which the group originally debuted during their appearance at this year’s Coachella, as well as a Korean version of that song.‘Girls’ will be aespa’s first release of 2022, and is the much-anticipated follow-up to the girl group’s popular debut mini-album ‘Savage’.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is hoping to solve the legend of D.B. Cooper, the mystery man who hijacked a Northwest Airlines passenger jet in November 1971 and escaped with $200,000, never to be seen again.

Paramount+ has expanded into South Korea, marking the first time the streaming service is available in Asia, Paramount announced Wednesday.Starting now, subscribers of South Korea-based streaming platform Tving will be able to stream Paramount+ content at no additional cost. This includes Paramount+ originals “Halo,” “Mayor of Kingstown” and “1883” along with shows from Paramount-owned Showtime including “Yellowjackets” and “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” all of which are available in Korea for the first time.The deal is part of a global partnership between Paramount and CJ ENM, which co-owns Tving, and will also see seven Korean original shows distributed on Paramount+.The first production to launch as part of that partnership is the upcoming series “Yonder,” set to launch on Tving in late 2022 and on Paramount+ where the services is available.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Paramount+ streaming service launches Thursday in South Korea as a free-of-charge addition to the CJ ENM-controlled TVing platform.Paramount+ originals such as “Halo,” in addition to “Yellowjackets,” “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” “Mayor of Kingstown” and “1883” will be released for the first time in Korea, exclusively through the new branded zone. It will also provide access to library movie titles including “Mission: Impossible,” “Top Gun,” and “Transformers,” CBS series “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and “NCIS,” Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants,” Comedy Central’s “South Park,” MTV’s young adult series and others from Showtime.

Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentBack in Japan after his Korean-language drama “Broker” won two prizes at this year’s Cannes festival, Kore-eda Hirokazu appeared as a press event in Tokyo on Tuesday to announce the launch of a group of industry professionals who aim for structural reform of the Japanese film industry.The group calls itself the “Association for the Establishment of a Japanese Version of CNC.” The reference is to France’s government-backed oversight body, the Centre National du Cinema et de l’Image Animee. Kore-eda noted the low incomes and long working hours of freelance filmmakers and emphasized the need for reform.