Korea Box Office: Theatrical Market Reaches Three-Month Low Despite New Releases

according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo. The Post gave the sequel to the 2019 original “0 stars for a teenage train wreck.”“Scream VI” which was in the number one spot last week, shrieked its way down to second, with close to $5.2 million in sales.The horror film, the first in the slasher series to be set in New York City, enjoyed a $44.5 million opening weekend, the highest out of any in the franchise, according to The Hollywood Reporter.Michael B.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “We 12,” a movie featuring the entire group of 12 Mirror Canto-pop stars is part of the expanding production slate of Makerville, the talent and production arm of Hong Kong telecoms and TV group PCCW. The development is paralleled by an expansion of the production operations of Viu, PCCW’s multi-territory video streamer which recently confirmed its profitability. Makerville is the talent agency behind Mirror, which was created in 2018 through the “Good Night Show – Kingmaker” talent show on ViuTV, a PCCW terrestrial channel. And it was able to put all the band members on stage Wednesday at a promotional event within the FilMart rights market in Hong Kong.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Fly Me to the Moon,” a work-in-progress from Hong Kong, dominated the prizes presented at the Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum project market. It collected five awards and was invited to continue its journey at Cannes in May. Directed by first-time feature maker Sasha Chuk and produced by the veteran Stanley Kwan, the film tells the tale of a pair of sisters moving from Hunan to Hong Kong in the 1990s. They are faced with an identity crisis, poverty and their father’s drug addiction. It entered the market with $640,000 of its intended $705,000 production budget in place, and more than filled the gap with the prizes announced on Wednesday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Kowloon Walled City — one of Hong Kong’s most famous landmarks, or infamous trouble spots, depending on your point of view — fell prey to the developers’ bulldozer 30 years ago. But it remains an icon of the territory’s gritty spirit and is being painstakingly re-created for action thriller feature “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.” The film is a beacon for how Hong Kong cinema is now evolving. Directed by hot-shot Soi Cheang, whose “Mad Fate” recently played in Berlin and is set for imminent local release, “Twilight” boasts leading stars Louis Koo, Sammo Hung and Richie Jen, plus emerging talents Philip Ng, Raymond Lau and Terrance Lau.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, is back in full force in 2023, celebrating its 25th anniversary edition from April 21–29. A key component of the celebrations will be a focus on the Asian films of the 1980s. “We have never programmed these films, nor put together this kind of program before,” says Thomas Bertacche, the FEFF’s co-head. “But these were the films and directors that inspired us to shape Udine into the festival that it is today.” Pitching the historical lineup as “hidden treasures,” the selection is expected to include early works by Japan’s Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Thailand’s Nonzee Nimibutr and South Korea’s Jan Sung-woo.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The much-decorated Japanese drama “Drive My Car” was named the best film Sunday at the Asian Film Awards, defeating hot favorite “Decision to Leave.” Other notable awards went to Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda whose “Broker” debuted at Cannes, but which was largely shunned in his home country. “Decision to Leave,” which started the evening with ten nominations, was nevertheless rewarded with three awards, best screenplay, best production design and best actress for China’s Tang Wei.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean tech giant Kakao has gained the upper hand in the battle for control of K-pop agency SM Entertainment, after HYBE Corp., the firm behind music idols BTS, said Sunday that it had called off its takeover bid. SM is the second largest talent Korean music talent firm and is behind music acts including Super M, Aespa, BoA and Red Velvet, Girls’ Generation, H.O.T., EXO, Super Junior, SHINee and NCT Dream. HYBE said on Sunday that it will “discontinue the acquisition process […] after observing that the market has been showing signs of overheating due to competition with both Kakao and Kakao Entertainment,” something that it said could “damage shareholder value.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief CJ ENM is putting an emphasis on TV content over feature film at the upcoming FilMart rights market in Hong Kong. The South Korean behemoth, which operates multiple studios and the TVing streaming platform, is touting at least six shows and formats. Sebastian Kim, the group’s director of international content sales and acquisition, will also be taking part in a Monday morning seminar “Spotlight Conversation: The Asian Wave in 2023 and Beyond” at FilMart. His lineup is headed by “The Heavenly Idol,” a fantasy, romance series which sees a priest from a different era transported to the present day as a pop idol. His training makes him a hopeless celebrity, but he has to learn to adapt. Starring Kim Min-gue and Go Bo-gyeol, the 12-part series began airing mind-February on tvN.

viewed here, shows that the number of movie screens in the U.S. and Canada declined by 5% between 2019 and 2022 from 44,283 to 42,063 screens. The Cinema Foundation says it is unclear how many of those screens can directly attribute their closure to financial strain brought by the pandemic or how many may be brought back by theater chains acquiring and reopening closed multiplexes.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief American musical comedy film “Lyle Lyle Crocodile,” is set to release in mainland China cinemas, having received approvals for import and distribution from Chinese authorities. It will play in China from April 15, 2023. The film was released in North America in early October last year and many other territories at the end of 2022. Parts of Asia have been later to receive the title with Korea and Taiwan play it from January and Japan set to open it from March 24. The film has grossed $108 million worldwide, with $60.9 million of that coming from international markets and $46.8 million from the North American domestic market, studio backer Sony Pictures reported.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. Discovery and Japan’s U-Next have announced an extension of their relationship with a renewed deal to supply content to the SVOD platform. The agreement sees U-Next continue as the streaming home of HBO in Japan. Featuring exclusive content rights for HBO, HBO Original and HBO Max Original series, the strengthened agreement includes: current and future seasons of HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” “The Last of Us” and “Succession” as well as returning HBO Original and HBO Max Original series “True Detective: Night Country,” “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” and “And Just Like That…”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF) has increased its stake in Japanese film and TV studio Toei Company, from 5% to 6.03%, according to a report by the Reuters financial news agency. The move comes shortly after Toei published a ten-year plan for international expansion. Toei includes film and TV production operations, the T-Joy cinema chain and Toei Animation. Last month, it said that it had beaten its film revenue record, thanks to the success of titles including “The First Slam Dunk,” “The Legend of Butterfly” and “One Piece Film Red.” The stake increase also follows PIF’s February announcement that it had increased its stake in Japanese games and console maker Nintendo to 8.26% and that (along with the Singapore state fund GIC) was a buyer of a $966 million bond issue from Korean entertainment-tech firm Kakao Corp.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Global streaming operation Netflix is forecast to spend $1.9 billion on local content in the Asia-Pacific region this year as group revenue from the region accelerates to 12%, according to a new report. The content investment spending figure represents a 15% hike. Netflix will grow revenues this year by 12% year-on-year to exceed $4 billion compared with 9% growth in 2022, says a new report published on Monday by Media Partners Asia.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Cyber Heist,” a crime thriller directed by Hong Kong’s Wong Hing-fan (“I’m Livin’ It”) and scripted by Soi Cheang (aka Cheang Pou Soi), took the top spot at the mainland Chinese box office over the weekend. It earned a very modest $6.2 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. But that was enough to win on the quietest weekend since January’s Lunar New Year holiday season. “Cyber Heist” stars Aaron Kwok as a cyber security engineer who develops a state-of-the-art firewall that is capable of fending off online attacks against the global financial system. But he does not realize that in doing so he has stepped into a minefield that is even more dangerous. The picture also stars Lam Ka-tun and Simon Yam.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Weekend honors at the South Korean box office went to the Japanese animation film “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To The Swordsmith Village,” the latest installment in the “Demon Slayer” film and TV franchise. It earned $2.31 million between Friday and Sunday, for nearly a quarter of the total weekend cinema business, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).

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.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Sculptor turned director Wu Lang made a splash at the Berlin Film Festival with his debut feature “Absence” playing in the festival’s showcase Encounters section. With a high-profile cast headed by Lee Kang-sheng (“What Time Is It There?” “The Wayward Cloud”) and Li Meng (“The Bad Kids,” “The Guillotines”) “Absence” is an art-house romance that uses skyscapes and urban landscapes as metaphors for inner feelings. The seduction starts with a man’s return to Hainan Island after ten years in jail and ends with a flock of sheep in an abandoned construction site. Wu: Shooting the first short film for me had two purposes. First, making a film is not easy in terms of financing and finding coproducers. So, first I wanted to make a short in order to get myself started.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Multi-territory Asian streaming service Viu has publicly disclosed key performance metrics for the first time and said that it was cash flow positive on an annual basis in 2022. The company, which operates in 16 Asian and Middle East markets and is seen as a rare success story in regional streaming, counts Hong Kong conglomerate PCCW as its principal shareholder, which also unveiled its own profits and loss figures for the 2022 calendar year. Viu which operates both ad-supported and paying tiers, said that it had 66.4 monthly active users in 2022, an increase of 13% year-on-year. Paying subscribers increased by 45% to 12.2 million over the same period.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japan’s online video market slowed in the fourth quarter of 2022, but ad-supported streamer TVer surged forward to overtake Prime Video as the most watched platform, according to a new report. The “Japan Online Video Consumer Insights & Analytics” report by consultancy Media Partners Asia shows SVOD subscriptions slowing to their slowest pace since 2015. From an average of 6-9 million per year between 2018 and 2021, they fell to just 3.1 million in 2022. Premium video viewership grew 8% quarter on quarter to reach 31 billion minutes in the fourth quarter, with SVOD at 55% share; AVOD at 34% and freemium at 11%.