Globalgate Strikes Finance and Strategy Pact With Korea-Oriented Silicon Valley Investor Maum Capital

Treat yourself! Hollywood can’t stop buzzing about the hottest spots in Miami and New York along with some wellness goodies anyone could use in their life.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival marks its 40th edition, running March 3-12, with a full-blown return to the in-person festival experience with a sidebar of only 10 titles available online.  “We’re celebrating the human connection and getting back into cinemas again,” says programming head Lauren Cohen who in her first year flying solo at the helm, is putting her personal stamp on the festival with female-centric topics dominating the Master Classes.  “It’s our 40th anniversary, which is such a milestone for us, we want it to be bigger and better than ever,” she continues. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Netflix and Korean public broadcaster MBC on Thursday defeated a court application for an injunction to stop the airing of their documentary “In The Name of God: A Holy Betrayal.” The 8-part series began airing from Friday (March 3). It is a Netflix Original, meaning that the streamer has global rights, including in Korea. The show examines “the chilling true stories of four Korean leaders claiming to be prophets [and] exposes the dark side of unquestioning belief.” Among its subjects is Christian Gospel Mission, also known as Providence, and also known as Jesus Morning Star, or JMS. It shares those initials with its controversial leader Jeong Myeong-seok (aka Jung Myung-seok) who is currently awaiting trial in Korea for sexually assaulting some of his female followers.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief HYBE Corp., the talent firm behind K-pop sensation BTS, has launched a campaign to woo the shareholders of SM Entertainment, the rival Korean talent empire in which it is poised become the largest single shareholder. In a letter and video package, issued Thursday, HYBE said that it was launching a campaign website detailing its business strategy and the ways in which it plans to prioritize SM shareholders. The documents directly criticized SM’s current management and also struck out at Korean entertainment-tech giant Kakao, with which SM has recently struck an alliance.

BBC Studios Renews Pact With ZDF

J-Hope is preparing to enlist.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez were spotted looking relaxed as they returned from their vacation in the Caribbean. The couple was photographed as they held hands and walked out of their private plane in Miami. Lauren Sánchez dedicates sweet Valentine’s Day post to Jeff BezosLauren Sanchez shows off her lacy dress in a new videoSanchez was wearing a white crop top with comfortable looking pants that had on a floral black and white print on them.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” held on to top spot at the South Korean box office. But the overall market continued to soften despite a slew of new release titles. Nationwide theatrical grosses totaled just $7.26 million. That made it the slowest box office weekend in over three months. “Quantumania” collected $2.0 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic), and enjoyed a 27% market share. The second weekend increment lifted its 12-day total to $10.6 million. Long-running Japanese animation title, “The First Slam Dunk” earned $1.36 million in its eighth weekend on release. Since Jan. 4 it has accumulated $28.0 million.

Think of Miami in Florida and you conjure up long stretches of sand and the Art Deco backdrop of Ocean drive. But whisk yourself over the 2.8-mile long MacArthur bridge and you enter downtown Miami. With soaring skyscrapers, stylish hotels, rooftop pools and impeccable dining options, it’s glamorous and cosmopolitan, offering a hip, urban vibe in contrast to the sun-scorched streets of Miami Beach.Temperatures hit 25°C from November to March before the mercury soars to more sweltering levels, making the city – recently dubbed US capital of cool by Time magazine – a good option for a late spring break.

EXCLUSIVE: Following bidding wars in multiple territories, A24 has sold Past Lives, probably the year’s most critically acclaimed new film, to a raft of key territories.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief HYBE, the South Korean talent management company behind BTS, said Wednesday that it has already paid for its purchase a 14.8% stake in rival SM Entertainment and expects to complete the deal by March 6, ahead of the previously announced schedule. The company announced earlier this month that it will buy most of the 18.5% stake in SM Entertainment owned by founder Lee Soo Man, making HYBE SM Entertainment’s largest shareholder. The deal is priced at $336 million (KRW423 billion), giving SM Entertainment an implied valuation of $2.27 billion. Lee retains an option to sell the remainder of his stake to HYBE at specific prices within a month. HYBE has also offered to buy a further 25% of the company from other shareholders.

K-pop girl group Cherry Bullet will return with their third mini-album ‘Cherry Dash’ next month.Cherry Bullet first announced their comeback last week, later revealing that the record’s title track is ‘P.O.W (Play On the World)’, with the entire EP due for release on March 7 at 6pm KST. The record’s tracklist has yet to be shared at the time of publication.The release of ‘Cherry Dash’ will mark the seven-piece’s first music in a year, their last project being the sophomore mini-album ‘Cherry Wish’ released in March 2022.

IST Entertainment has confirmed that a new Apink mini-album will be released in April.The South Korean music label issued a statement to Sports Kyunghang earlier today (February 22) announcing that the five-piece are currently gearing up to release new music. Additional details about the new album, including a title and release window, have yet to be shared by IST.“Apink (Chorong, Yoon Bomi, Jung Eun Ji, Namjoo, Hayoung) is confirmed to release a new mini-album in April, and they will start comeback promotions,” the company announced, as translated by Soompi. Apink’s as-yet-untitled record will mark the band’s first music together in slightly over a year, their last project together being ‘HORN’, a special album released in February 2022 with the title track ‘Dilemma’.In a four-star review of the album, NME described ‘HORN’ as a “delicate expansion of Apink’s mature, adult sound as they slip back into their roles as emotionally perceptive lovers”, adding: “As the group near their 11th anniversary, ‘Horn’ could not have come at a better time – or in more grandiose fashion – letting the K-pop world know Apink are back and here to stay.”It will also mark Apink’s first music since the departure of member Naeun from the group several months following the release of ‘HORN’ last year.

MAMAMOO subunit MAMAMOO+ will make their comeback next month.On February 21, RBW Entertainment informed South Korean media outlet TV Report that the duo of MAMAMOO members Solar and Moonbyul are “preparing for a comeback with the goal of coming March”.Details including an exact release date, tracklist and album format have not been announced at the time of publishing.The forthcoming release will mark MAMAMOO+’s first comeback as a duo, and serve as the follow-up to their debut single ‘Better’ featuring rapper BIG Naughty last August. The pair are currently the first and only subunit that MAMAMOO has launched.Two months after MAMAMOO+’s debut, the quartet returned with their ‘Mic ON’ mini-album, their first group release in over a year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema has unveiled its 85-title lineup for the edition that starts later this month (February 28 to March 7, 2023). Elements include a 10-film competition section, a 10-film documentary film section, a tribute to the Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu; a thematic section “Asian Diaspora Cinema” offering a panorama of works by directors from Asian countries living in exile; and a Philippines cinema sidebar. Fiction films in competition include: Azerbaijan’s “Cold as Marble,” by Asif Rustamov; China’s “In Our Prime,” by Liu Yulin; Korea’s “A Letter from Kyoto,” by Kim Min-ju; India’s: “Behind Veils,” by Praveen Morshhale; Iran’s “No End,” by Nader Saievar; Mongolia’s “The Sales Girl,” by Sengedorj Janchivdorj; The Philippines’s “Feast,” by Brillante Mendoza; Singapore’s “#LookAtMe,” by Ken Kwek; and Vietnam’s “Memento Mori: Earth,” by Marcus Vu Manh Cuong. The president of the jury is Lee Yong-kwan, president of the Busan film festival.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Growth of premium video services in Southeast Asia accelerated in the second half of 2022, to reach 48.4 million paid subscriptions, according to a new report. But the same analysis sees growth slowing and costs accelerating. The latest report from Media Partners Asia, “SEA Online Video Consumer Insights & Analytics” shows 48.4 million paid online video subscriptions at the end of 2022 in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The full year saw 11.8 million net new customers, with 7.3 million of that total coming in the second half, including 4.6 million in the fourth quarter. Indonesia accounted for half of the increase.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” dominated the Korean box office charts over the latest weekend with a $4.91 million opening weekend. Nationwide box office rose to $9.78 million, up from $7.85 million a week earlier. The film played on over 2,000 screens and enjoyed a 50.1% market share between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council. The film earned $7.1 million in its full five day run since opening on Wednesday. “Quantumania” landed ahead of “The First Slam Dunk,” the Japanese animation that opened at the beginning of the year and had taken the top spot for the previous two weeks. “Slam Dunk” earned $2.17 million, another strong hold, and down from $2.67 million the previous weekend. Its cumulative total since Jan. 4 stands at $26 million.

Don Lemon is taking a break from work right now and he’s relaxing at the beach with fiance Tim Malone.

Starting on Saturday, Silicon Valley will be airing on TBS and True Blood will air on TNT in an experiment to attract new audiences with existing IP.

Popular HBO shows “True Blood” and “Silicon Valley” are heading to basic cable channels TNT and TBS as part of a new programming experiment from Warner Bros. Discovery. This could be the beginning of a new trend for Warner Bros. Discovery.