‘Godzilla X Kong’ Director Compares Monster Film To An ’80s Buddy-Cop Movie Like ‘Lethal Weapon’

Annika Pham Doc specialist house Autlook Film Sales has picked up world sales on the Finnish film “Once Upon a Time in a Forest,” ahead of its world premiere in the main competition of Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX festival. Variety is premiering its trailer (below). The film, directed and produced by Virpi Suutari, scooped the $15,000 Al Jazeera Documentary Pitch Award at the last Cannes Marché du Film.

This year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival will feature a masterclass and career retrospective of UK-Irish writer and director Martin McDonagh.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Superstar Japanese auteur Hamaguchi Ryusuke will unveil “Gift,” a companion piece to his recent “Evil Does Not Exist” as a one-off live performance at next month’s Hong Kong International Film Festival. Following the success of his breakout “Drive My Car,” which won the Oscar for best international feature film, Hamaguchi initially made “Gift” as a silent film project to accompany the live performance of Ishibashi Eiko, the music composer of both “Drive” and later “Evil.” From the same project, Hamaguchi also derived “Evil Does Not Exist,” which then went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s Venice International Film Festival.

Naman Ramachandran The Asian Film Awards Academy has revealed several events around the annual Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong. Veteran filmmakers, jury president of this year’s awards, Japan’s Kurosawa Kiyoshi and Hong Kong’s Fruit Chan, will share their filmmaking experiences and artistic concepts in a joint masterclass. Thai star Metawin Opas-Iamkajorn (“2gether” series and film) known as Win, will be honored with the AFA Rising Star Award and the event will host the world premiere of his new film “Under Parallel Skies.” There will also be six themed panel discussions featuring actors Wan Fang (Taiwan), Rachel Leung and Yoyo Tse (both Hong Kong), Tergel Bold-Erdene (Mongolia), Awat Ratanapintha (Thailand) and Shirata Mihaya (Japan).

When director Amber Fares came out with her documentary Speed Sisters, about the Middle East’s first all-women race car driving team, the New York Times praised it as “unconventional in form as well as content.”

Long-awaited FX epic Shōgun, which launches tomorrow, has been compared to HBO epic Game of Thrones by all and sundry, but director Jonathan van Tulleken has different comparators in mind.

Ernst Lubitsch, Stanley Kubrick and Roman Polanski are among eight older titles set to play at next month’s Hong Kong International Film Festival. Lubitsch’s 1920 farce “Kohlhiesel’s Daughters,” will be presented with a live music accompaniment by the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. And, despite rumors to the contrary, Kubrick’s first feature, “Fear and Desire,” has been preserved intact and will play at the festival with nine minutes of previously deleted footage.

Mark Ruffalo is opening up in his new interview.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Hong Kong-Europe-Asian Film Collaboration Funding Scheme being launched this week in Berlin is intended as a major component of an exercise in rehabilitating and internationalizing the Hong Kong film industry. In unprecedented fashion, the territory’s Film Development Council is getting ready to start giving cash grants to movie projects that don’t necessarily have to shoot in the city or even use one of its three official languages.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief In January, when Netflix unveiled its slate of Chinese-language original productions for 2024, all of them turned out to be Taiwanese. Not Chinese. And not from Hong Kong, a territory that once produced over 300 movies a year in multiple Chinese dialects.

EXCLUSIVE: Production has wrapped on indie feature Bad Man, starring Seann William Scott (American Pie) alongside Johnny Simmons (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Rob Riggle (21 Jump Street), Chance Perdomo (After We Fell), Andre Hyland (Barry), and Lovi Poe (Chelsea Cowboy).

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Copenhagen documentary film festival CPH:DOX, whose 21st edition runs from March 13-24, has unveiled the films nominated across all six award categories. The selection features 66 films in competition, among which 47 are world premieres, 17 international premieres and two European premieres.

Godzilla x Kong, their hugely anticipated sequel coming to cinemas at the end of March. Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle, Alex Ferns and Fala Chen lead the cast of the film which is directed by Adam Wingard.The synopsis is as follows:The epic battle continues! Legendary Pictures’ cinematic Monsterverse follows up the explosive showdown of “Godzilla vs. Kong” with an all-new adventure that pits the almighty Kong and the fearsome Godzilla against a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence—and our own. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” delves further into the histories of these Titans and their origins, as well as the mysteries of Skull Island and beyond, while uncovering the mythic battle that helped forge these extraordinary beings and tied them to humankind forever.This one hits March 29th.Here’s the new trailer, the second we’ve seen for this huge blockbuster, one of the first big-budget releases of 2024.When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.@ THN - The Hollywood News 2023 This website uses cookies to improve your experience.

Bret Easton Ellis is an interesting person. First, he’s the author of an iconic novel (a personal favorite of this writer), “American Psycho.” He also wrote other notable books like “Less Than Zero” and “The Rules of Attraction.” But he’s not just an author nowadays.

If 2014’s Gareth Edwards’ “Godzilla” took a grounded and gritty realistic page from Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dark Knight’ films, then it should be abundantly clear from some of the latest images and trailers that filmmaker Adam Wingard (“The Guest”) is moving in a drastically different direction with the fifth film in Legendary’s Monsterverse franchise saga, “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.” Seemingly even far afield than Wingard’s own 2021 film, “Godzilla Vs.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Cinema box office in Hong Kong failed to live up to expectations over the Lunar New Year holidays, even as local films led the chart. Movie theatre takings between Feb. 9-13 in Hong Kong weighed in at just HK$48.6 million ($6.23 million), according to data provided by Hong Kong Box Office Limited, a joint venture between Motion Picture Industry Association (MPIA) and the Hong Kong Theatres Association.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong will offer more than $1 million per project to film coproductions with Europe under a new grant scheme to be launched this week at the European Film Market in Berlin. The territory’s government is also sponsoring a visit to Berlin by a select group of producers and directors. The Hong Kong-Europe-Asian Film Collaboration Funding Scheme is an extension of the Hong Kong-Asian program that was launched in January last year.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Subversive American author Bret Easton Ellis is set to make his directorial debut with “Relapse,” an elevated horror film he wrote starring “Stranger Things” breakout Joseph Quinn. Paris-based SND has boarded the project as producer, alongside Adrian Guerra’s Nostromo (“Penny Dreadful”) and Simon Wallon’s Kiss & Kill (“Bonnie”). SND will handle worldwide sales on “Relapse,” as well as French distribution, and will tease the title at the EFM with an exclusive sizzle reel.

Manchester City have suffered a blow with Jack Grealish going off injured in the early stages of their Champions League last-16 tie at FC Copenhagen.

As Manchester City's defence of the Champions League enters the crucial Round of 16, they find themselves with a considerable advantage. Their opponents, FC Copenhagen, have been on their winter break since mid-December, potentially giving City an edge in match fitness and form.