‘Boys Like Boys’ Picked up by Warner Bros Discovery, as GagaOOLala Expands LGBT Sales Slate at TCCF

TWICE have dropped a remix album titled ‘The Remixes’, featuring seven re-arranged versions of some of their hit songs, alongside several new collaborations.The new record, which dropped on streaming services earlier today (November 22), includes new English versions of ‘Alcohol-Free’ and ‘Cry For Me’, as well as an electronic dance pop remix of ‘Moonlight Sunrise’ with DJ Jonas Blue, which first dropped as a pre-release for ‘The Remixes’ last week.TWICE also joined forces with pop-rock band Boys Like Girls on a refreshed version of ‘I Can’t Stop Me’, and collaborated with DJs Ian Asher, Carneyval and Lee Hae-sol on remixes of the songs ‘The Feels’, ‘Set Me Free’ and ‘More & More’, respectively. Listen to the record below.In other K-pop news, aespa’s Karina has joined the cast of an upcoming reality series from Netflix titled Agents of Mystery. She is set to star alongside former Girls’ Day member and actress Lee Hye-ri, actors Kim Do-hoon and Lee Yong-jin, comedian Lee Eun-ji and singer John Park.While an official premiere date for the series has yet to be announced, Netflix announced that the show will be produced by Jeong Jong-yeon, who previously helmed the viral Netflix reality show The Devil’s Plan, which premiered earlier this year.Meanwhile, Prime Video has released the first trailer for its upcoming original K-drama series My Man is Cupid, starring Mask Girl‘s Nana and Daily Dose of Sunshine‘s Jang Dong-yoon.

Warner Bros. Discovery has said British laws that restrict the period distributors can require exhibitors to screen their films may now be “outdated,” and it is time for the UK government to consider repealing the legislation. 

Media, entertainment and tech companies held their own in the top 25 ranking of overpaid CEOs in 2022 by nonprofit As You Sow. Live Nation’s Michael Rapino ($139 million pay package) topped the list, which also included Netflix, Paramount Global and Warner Bros Discovery, as well as Charter, Apple and Alphabet.

Jaden Thompson Congressman Joaquin Castro has taken to X/Twitter to call out Warner Bros. Discovery for planning to shelve the completed film “Coyote vs. Acme” for the sake of receiving a $30 million tax break.

Texas congressman Joaquin Castro has taken to X to slam Warner Bros Discovery for axing the $70M Coyote vs. Acme for a reported $30M tax writeoff. That said, as we first reported, the studio is changing course this week and screening the film for potential buyers, i.e. Amazon Prime (a leading contender), Apple and Netflix. This pivot by studio brass was made after a weekend in which the studio’s phone rang off the hook by the creative community over the cancelling of the finished film, as well as an outcry by the pic’s composer Steven Price among others online.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The fourth running of the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (aka TCCF) wrapped on Friday with the award of some 30 prizes to film and TV projects in five sections. The prizes followed three and a half days of one-on-one meetings and pitching within the context of the TAICCA-backed project, innovation and rights sales market.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief France and Taiwan on Thursday signed a wide-ranging agreement to enable their film and TV industries co-operate on a higher level. At a signing ceremony in Taipei at the Taiwan Creative Culture Fest (TCCF) convention, government representatives of both territories stressed shared values at the political level and in the audiovisual sphere.

Warner Bros Discovery is reteaming with Taiwanese production company DaMou Entertainment to produce HBO Asia original Fired Up! (working title), an adaptation of hit Kakao webtoon Itaewon Class. 

Investors bid down shares of Warner Bros. Discovery today as its chief financial officer described a U.S. ad market “that has continued to be weaker than we had hoped” and a recovery that’s hard to predict “with any conviction.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav opened the company’s quarterly earnings presentation with remarks on the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, remaining “hopeful” that the work stoppage will end “soon” following the Hollywood studios’ move to adjust AI language in its “last, best and final offer” to the actors union. “We are hopeful we will reach a resolution to the SAG-AFTRA strike soon,” Zaslav said during WBD’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery narrowed its third-quarter loss as the media giant, grappling with billions of dollars in debt as a result of the 2022 merger that created it, saw the box-office success of “Barbie” offset by a 12% decline in advertising at its portfolio of TV networks. The owner of CNN, the Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s third quarter was mixed with ‘Barbie’ coin and free cash flow beloved by Wall Street offset by sluggish advertising and the impact of the actors’ strike on the one of the industry’s biggest content creators.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “My Stand-In,” an action drama that starts shooting imminently, is a new Thai-language original series for Chinese streaming platform iQiyi. Fitting the booming ‘Boys Love’ genre, the series is a screen adaptation of a hit Chinese-language web novel “Stand-In Ship” written by Shui Qiancheng. The underlying novel has garnered over a billion readers on platforms including Weibo and iQiyi Novels.

Free TV Networks, a new programming entity with a presence in both over-the-air broadcast and streaming, has enlisted Warner Bros. Discovery, Lionsgate and Gray Television as partners and suppliers.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A trio of ministers, accompanied by a fleet of senior industry names, were on hand Tuesday in Taipei to give their official blessing to the opening of the fourth running of the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) – and to underline the Taiwan government’s investment in soft power. Cheng Wen-tsan, VP of the [government executive branch] Executive Yuan, Taiwan’s Minister of Culture, Shih Che, and a minister without portfolio were accompanied by Chunghwa Telecom’s chairman, Kuo Shui-Yi, head of TAICCA Homme Tsai and Dominique Boutonnat, president of France’s National Center of Cinematography and the Moving Image, on stage at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, a former-tobacco factory site that has since been redeveloped. “Nowadays we are investing not only in semiconductors and heavy industry, but also in media and content,” said Cheng. He confirmed that some NT$10 billion ($310 million) of government funding has been approved for the “1 Plus 4T Content Plan” and will be released over four years. In a classic example of public-private partnerships, state cash is being supplemented by further financial commitments from Taiwan’s three major cable-telecoms-internet groups through deals signed last week with Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief TAICCABOSSAs Taiwan seeks for creative, industrial and political reasons to make a bigger mark for itself on the international stage, its Taiwan Creative Content Fest is diversifying, expanding and making greater efforts at cross-border outreach. Homme Tsai, chair of industry support body TAICCA spoke outline the event’s strategy and novelties in a conversation with Variety. What are the objectives of the Taiwan Creative Content Fest? The TCCF is an international event for content licensing and project investment.

Taiwanese LGBTQ+ Streamer GagaOOLala has announced a packed slate of originals and acquired titles on the eve of Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF), including unscripted queer reality dating series Boys Like Boys. 

As Kelsey Grammer says in his 2020 low-budget action movie Money Plane, “Whatever you want to wager on, the money plane has you covered. You want to bet on a dude f*cking an alligator? Money Plane.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Boy and the Heron” supposedly the final feature film by Japanese animation maestro Miyazaki Hayao, placed on top of the south Korean box office for a second weekend. It held off challenges from a clutch of new releases, including “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “Talk to Me.” “The Boy and the Heron” collected $2.49 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. Discovery, Taiwan Mobile and the Taiwan Creative Content Agency have signed a multi-year memorandum of understanding to create and distribute Taiwanese original content locally and across international markets. The MOU, signed in advance of next week’s TCCF event, combines the expertise and reach of the three companies to develop, produce and distribute local IP and content for both local and global audiences.