Malaysia’s Iskandar Studios Sold to Singapore’s GHY Culture

EXCLUSIVE: Asia-focused production, financing and sales outfit EST Studios has acquired international sales rights to Canneseries selection Streams Flow From A River, produced by Canada’s Fae Pictures. 

Rihanna enjoyed a late-night outing with her bestie this week!

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent British director Joe Wright, who helmed Winston Churchill drama “Darkest Hour” – which earned Gary Oldman an Oscar for his portrayal as the British prime minister – has now changed historical sides.  Wright is at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios shooting high-end TV drama “M. Son of the Century” which chronicles Benito Mussolini’s rise to power. A timely tale because, as he puts it: “Populist leaders are sprouting up all over the world.”  Aesthetically, the show will be “quite outlandish” with deeply saturated colors, punctuated by a “kind of techno score,” the director said during a recent set visit. Though “It’s not told in a vérité style,” Wright pointed out that “All the facts of what happened, they’re all there.” 

Manchester United's injury crisis worsened ahead of their 2-0 win at Nottingham Forest on Sunday with the absences of Marcel Sabitzer and Tyrell Malacia.

Melissa McCarthy said drag queens were "100 percent" an influence behind her portrayal of the tentacled sea witch Ursula in the upcoming live-action "The Little Mermaid" flick set to hit theaters on Memorial Day weekend. McCarthy recently joined costar Halle Bailey and director Rob Marshall to discuss the upcoming film with Entertainment Weekly where she gave a brief spiel about her history with drag performances and how her drag queen persona spilled over into her portrayal of the infamous villainess.

Radio Silence is the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and they first landed on everyone’s radar with their Samara Weaving-led horror-comedy “Ready or Not. That also caught the attention of Spy Glass Media, who tasked them to direct the last two “Scream” installments—a seventh film now getting ready to go in front of cameras in the near future.

EXCLUSIVE: Following the success of the recent Scream films, Melissa Barrera is looking to reteam with some familiar faces as sources tell Deadline Barrera is set to join Radio Silence’s Untitled Monster Thriller at Universal.

Michelle Yeoh is continuing to celebrate her big Oscar win by bringing her golden statuette to her home in Malaysia.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Michelle Yeoh, who made history by winning the best actress Oscar for her performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” last month, made an emotional return trip to her native Malaysia last week. She visited her mother in time for the traditional Qingming Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day, and stopped by the grave of her father who died in 2014. In an Instagram post on Wednesday she said, “Brought Mr. O home. Without my parents’ love and trust and support, I wouldn’t be here today.”A post shared by Michelle Yeoh 楊紫瓊 (@michelleyeoh_official) Her trip home represented a promise that Yeoh made during her Oscars acceptance speech.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Jio Studios, the content arm of Reliance Industries Limited, has unveiled a huge slate of 100 new films and TV shows that will play on Reliance’s streaming platforms. They range from the previously-announced Shah Rukh Khan-starring Bollywood movie project “Dunki,” through Adil Hussain’s Bengali-language art-house picture “The Storyteller,” which appeared at the Busan Film Festival last year, to a range of web originals and mini-series. Contents are made as originals in a range of local languages including Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati and Bhojpuri. Genres range from action, drama, thriller and romance to horror and musicals.

Oscar-nominated actress, writer and producer Melissa McCarthy has been named as CinemaCon’s Cinema Vérité Award recipient for 2023.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief As recently as last month, government officials in the Malaysian state of Serawak, Borneo, told local media that their state needs to build a new film production facility like the Iskandar Malaysia Studios in the south of peninsular Malaysia. Serawak officials said that their state Premier had visited the studios and plans had been discussed with FINAS, Malaysia’s national film regulatory and financing body.

Singapore is launching a S$10M ($7.5M) fund to attract international productions to work with local filmmakers and shine a spotlight on the city. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief To stimulate travel to Singapore through TV series and films, the city state’s Infocomm Media Development Authority and the Singapore Tourism Board are launching a $7.53 million (S$10 million) fund. The fund will support selected projects by international media and entertainment companies. These must be set in Singapore and launched before the first quarter of 2027. Successful projects will receive funding support of up to 30% of their qualifying costs related to featuring Singapore, including production and marketing costs. Project proposals will be evaluated based on their distribution and market reach, content concept and creative merit, opportunities to feature Singapore’s offerings and experiences, as well as the number of local talents involved in credited roles.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief C More has commissioned a second, six-episode season of ITV Studios Finland’s glossy detective drama “Helsinki Crimes” (aka “Harjunpää”). The first season of Helsinki Crimes became one of C More’s most-watched crime series to date. After its launch on Netflix last year, in regions across CEE, Benelux, Austria and the Nordics, the series was one of the top ten most-watched series, and the third most-watched in Finland.  In the new season, Chief Constable Timo Harjunpää, portrayed by Olli Rahkonen, and his murder team investigate bloody clashes between street gangs, love scams and a wave of burglaries.

Fashion expert Melissa Rivers is sharing her do's and don'ts of red carpet fashion ahead of the CMT Music Awards in Austin, Texas. "A red carpet do would be take a page from the award shows we've already seen this year. One of the best years for fashion on the red carpet that we've seen in a long time," Rivers said in an interview with Fox News Digital.

Melissa Joan Hart shared a heartbreaking story about the shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, this week.

Melissa Joan Hart posted a raw video of her experience being nearby the Nashville school shooting.

K.J. Yossman Former Amazon Studios Europe boss Georgia Brown has revealed her first industry role since leaving the streamer last year. She is set to chair a skills task force for the U.K. screen industry with the intention of focusing on critical labor shortages in the production sector. Joining her on the task force will be senior representatives from major U.K. broadcasters BBC, ITV and Channel 4 as well as international studios and streamers including Prime Video, Netflix, Disney and NBCUniversal, key orgs such as ScreenSkills, PACT and the British Film Commission and national screen agencies. The British Film Institute (BFI) have convened the task force following a skills review commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport showing crew shortfalls will soon reach breaking point. Its remit is to produce and support a plan of action that will result in growth, training and increased retention in the screen sector as well as improvements in equity, diversity and inclusion and mental health. Where appropriate, the task force will make recommendations to the U.K. government.

Former Amazon Studios Europe boss Georgia Brown is to chair the BFI’s Skills Task Force, which has been assembled to address major skills shortages in the UK film and TV sector over the next five years.