Wiip-Owner, Korea’s SLL Touts 15-Title Second Half Slate

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A+E Networks has promoted Youngsun Soh to senior VP and MD of A+E Korea, and John Flanagan to senior VP and MD of A+E Japan & Southeast Asia. Saugato “Shoggy” Banerjee, who currently serves as MD of A+E Asia, is leaving the company from Sept. 30. The moves, intended to bolster operations in Asia, were announced Monday by Patrick Vien, group MD, A+E International and Steve MacDonald, president, global licensing & international. Based in Seoul, and reporting to Vien, Soh will continue to lead the growth of A+E’s business in Korea. She has led the unit since joining the company in 2017 as GM and oversaw the launch of History and Lifetime linear channels.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Tom Cruise has become a regular visitor to South Korea and, while his latest visit was more than a week ago, the impact of his efforts appeared to endure. His ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’ got off to the second strongest start at the Korean box office of any Hollywood movie released this year. The film grossed $9.75 million between Friday and Sunday, according to Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). That represented a 60% market share, earned from some 2,400 screens. In its full opening five days (plus previews), it earned $14.2 million.

William Earl Who’s up, who’s down and who is really in deep trouble on Wall Street? Media stocks have been on a wild ride in the first half of 2023. On the latest episode of Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” Variety Intelligence Platform media analyst Heidi Chung breaks down how Disney, Netflix, Comcast and other leading lights of media and entertainment have performed so far this year. “The best performing sector in the first half of the year was technology. And a lot of that was driven by the interest by investors in the generative AI boom, specifically,” Chung says in conversation with “Strictly Business” hosts Andrew Wallenstein and Cynthia Littleton.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean star Park Eun-bin is confirmed to lead Netflix’s upcoming series “Castaway Diva,” set to premiere in late 2023. Park previously starred in “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” the hit series that featured in Netflix’s non-English global top ten chart for 21 weeks and reached the top ten titles in 57 countries. In the new series, Park brings to life the character of Seo Mok-ha, an aspiring singer turned castaway who, after being stranded on a deserted island for 15 years, commences her journey to become a diva. Joining her are renowned actors Kim Hyo-jin, Chae Jong-hyeop, Cha Hak-yeon, and Kim Joo-hun. Kim Hyo-jin portrays a once-popular singer who is the idol of Seo and who seeks a new lease of life after encountering her fan from the island.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Disney+ has set an Aug. 9 upload date for Korean series “Moving” from webtoon pioneer Kang Full. The previously announced title forms part of a 20-component slate of films and series from East Asia that will release on the Disney-backed streaming platform in the second half of 2023 and through 2024.Also from Korea is “The Worst of Evil,” a detective series in which a rural policemen is brought to the big city to bring down a DJ dealing in a potent new drug. It stars Ji Changwook, “Squid Game” actor Wi Hajun and Lim Semi. Highlights from Japan include “Tokyo Revengers: Tenjiku Arc,” the latest instalments of a popular anime franchise, and the previously announced “Dragons of Wonderhatch,” a hybrid story set in both the “real world” and an anime land where dragons and humans coexist. The multi-dimensional story stars Nakajima Sena, Okudaira Daiken and Mackenyu.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Pixar animation film “Elemental” expanded further at the South Korean box office in its fourth weekend of release, giving the film its third weekend triumph in four weeks of release. “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” took third place from preview screening ahead of its official release on Wednesday. “Elemental” earned $6.11 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the box office tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). That represented a 14% increase on its previous weekend performance and was the best of its four weekends so far. It also increased its market share to 49%, also its strongest market position, despite only adding a handful of additional screens.

Disney+ has announced a slate of Asia originals for the second half of 2023, including Korean dramas Moving and The Worst Of Evil and the latest project in its collaboration with Hybe, BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International “D.P.” creator Kim Bo-tong has signed with CAA for representation. The Korean screenwriter, who is also known as Kim Ho Yeol, is the creator and co-writer of the webtoon “D.P.” which was adapted into the Netflix military drama. The show, which premiered in 2021, earned multiple awards in various categories at the Baeksang Arts Awards in 2022, establishing it as one of the top Korean dramas of the year. “D.P.” returns later this month for Season 2. The series follows a team of Korean military police who are tasked with catching deserters. (Military service is mandatory for men between the ages of 18 and 35 in South Korea.)

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The great Choi Min-sik was on hand to take early headlines at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan). Described somewhat blandly as “a highly reliable performer” by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), Choi is not only the star of Korea’s top grossing film of all time “The Admiral: Roaring Currents,” he continues to be available for work of all different levels. He appears in no less than ten titles that played at the festival this week. The festival also does reliable — in its own way – as it plays up to its “stay strange” mantra, cooperates with other festivals of a similar fantasy leaning and sidesteps the political infighting that currently bedevil Korea’s best-known festivals.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Manta, one of the leading platforms for subscription-based digital comics, has unveiled plans to launch more than ten original cartoon series through the third quarter of 2023. The company, which is owned by Korea’s RIDI Corporation, launched in 2020 and has become the number one comics app on Google Play in certain territories including the U.S., Mexico and Spain.Webtoons are a made for mobile genre of comics, that have become yet another Asian entertainment category that is having fast-growing international success. Many webtoons offer vertical scrolling, opportunities for new creators and content that is immediately available in multiple languages.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Bucheon film festival’s Network of Asian Fantastic Films project market wrapped up three days of meetings and pitching sessions on Monday with a prize ceremony that disbursed cash, post-production support and invitations to related genre film events. “The Passport,” a Tamil- and English-language Malaysian project about an Indian rockstar who is forced to confront cultural expectations and her interactions with an imaginary friend, won the headline Bucheon Award for director Ananth Subramanian and producer Bel Choo Mun. It was both a popular choice among other NAFF participants and the unanimous decision of the jury. The numerical winner was “Please Bear With Me,” which saw director Gabriela Serrano and producer Gale Osorio from the Philippines collect three prizes. The project is a sci-fi and social issues mash-up about a call center operative who gets paid in dream-time and uses it to relive her glory days as a pop star. A clearly-surprised Serrano used her second visit to the stage to explain the film’s origins as a deep frustration with seeing Filipina women stuck at the bottom of society and yet apologizing for their ambitions.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean tech firm CJ 4DPLEX has struck a deal with Thailand’s Major Cineplex to add two ScreenX locations in Cambodia and Thailand. One will be located at the AEON Mall Mean Chey, have almost 500 seats and have a 75-foot-wide central screen, making it the largest ScreenX auditorium in Southeast Asia. The other will be at Bangkok’s ICONSiam Mall location, debuting on July 27. ScreenX is a multi-projection system with an immersive 270-degree field of view. That creates a virtual reality-like setting with cinema quality resolution. Major’s first ScreenX launched in 2022 at its Siam Paragon location in central Bangkok.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Pixar animation film “Elemental” expanded at the South Korean box office in its third weekend of release and easily bested new release title “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” “Elemental” earned $5.27 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the box office tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). That represented a 38% increase on its previous weekend performance and was the best of its three weekends so far. It also increased its market share to 39%, also its strongest market position, despite only adding a handful of additional screens. After 19 days on release, “Elemental” has amassed $16.9 million from 2.25 million spectators.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Oh Seok-geun, head of the Asian Contents and Film Market in Busan, has resigned. Oh’s exit follows the resignation earlier this week of Busan International Film Festival chairman Lee Yong-kwan and the earlier departure of festival director Huh Moonyoung. “I submitted my resignation to the BIFF. I decided this was the best choice I could make. I hope my decision will help solve the BIFF situation,” Oh told Variety. A spokesman for the festival confirmed that Oh had tendered his resignation and said that the organization will frame its response next week.

Ten young people from Perthshire are counting the days till they board a flight bound for Seoul, South Korea.

The stars of the upcoming movie Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One are in Korea for the latest stop on their international press tour!

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Production is under way on a second season of lesbian drama “Fragrance of the First Flower,” an Asian drama series from Taiwan’s GagaOOLala. The first season, comprising six episodes that debuted in 2021, follows the life of Yi-Ming (portrayed by Lin ZaiZai), a married woman with a son, who finds herself reunited with Ting-Ting (played by Cheng Lyan), a girl from her past. Their encounter sparks a connection that opens the door to the possibility of escaping Yi-Ming’s monotonous married life. In season two, expanded to 12 episodes, Yi-Ming embarks on a new chapter as a newly divorced single mother and a career woman. This fresh start brings challenges as she navigates the hardships of single parenthood and societal pressures. Even though Taiwan has legalized same-sex marriage in 2019, this does not mean that LGBTQ+ relationships have been fully accepted in mainstream society. Yi-Ming grapples with whether she can truly follow her heart and pursue a life with Ting-Ting. The original cast will return and new characters will be introduced.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Lee Yong-kwan, one of the original founders of the Busan International Film Festival, says he is stepping down as the event’s chairman – this time with immediate effect. He says the move is intended to defuse a morass of factional infighting and political interference surrounding Asian’s most prominent film festival. A festival spokesman told Variety that the board of directors “has decided to persuade the chairperson to return. So, the resignation has not been accepted yet.”

Ampere Analysis  presented Tuesday at Spain’s Conecta Fiction.  Ampere’s popularity score is a propriety metric based not on viewership but on the tracking of internet search volume received by a title each month as well as other metrics, Ampere’s Alice Thorpe clarified at the presentation.  The fandom base of Korean series and Japanese anime are concentrated in teen and YA demographics, which are also most avid Internet users.