Race Across the World stars spill behind-the-scenes secrets - from hotel 'safety' measures to internet access

Annette Hess will receive the first-ever Deadline German TV Disruptor Award at Seriencamp next month. Hess has created some of the most memorable German drama series of recent years with work including Weisensee and the Ku’damm series, to Disney+ show The Interpreter of Silence, based on Hess’ novel Deutsches Haus. Ku’damm fans are currently waiting on a new series, Ku’damm 77, which Hess is in the process of writing with production set for early 2026.

EXCLUSIVE: Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired Northern American rights for Joachim A. Lang’s historical drama Goebbels and The Führer (aka Führer and Seducer) for a fall 2024 theatrical and digital release.  

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Female stunt performer Wiriya Caesar will step up into the lead performer role in upcoming Thai action film “The 24.” The film project is being launched this week in the Cannes Market by new international sales firm Boz Pictures. Wiriya (aka Porntip Wiriya, aka “Fan”) has previously been a stunt double for Mary-Elizabeth Winstead in “Kate” and Golshifteh Farahani in “Extraction,” and has other credits on “Thirteen Lives” and “Hidden Strike.” In “The 24” she will star as an assassin who wakes up with a time bomb strapped to her body. She has clear instructions to kill a hit list of 24 members of the Bangkok underground, with each successful hit buying her more time alive. Caesar is joined in the cast by Japan’s Sakaguchi Tak (“Re:Born,” “One Percenter,” “Versus”), Dan Chupong (“Ong Bak 1 &2,” “Born to Fight”), Sunny Pang (“The Night Comes for Us,” “Headshot” and Gareth Evans’ upcoming “Havoc”) and Simon Kook (“Ip Man 3,” “Mayhem”). The film, which will shoot in the fourth quarter of this year, is written and directed by Lee Thongkham (“The Maid,” “The Lake,” “Kitty the Killer”).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Seoul-based film sales company, Finecut has notched pre-sales for its upcoming action-comedy “The Desperate Chase, which it is launching this week at the Cannes Film Festival‘s Cannes Market,. The film is an action comedy featuring a hot-blooded detective and a swindler who is also a master of disguise who team up to combat an evil mafia. Early rights buyers include Rights Cube for Japan, Apex Success Global for Taiwan and Mockingbird Pictures for Vietnam. Screening as a rough cut in the Cannes Market, the film is the second feature by Kim Jae-hoon, known for his debut with the body-switch action thriller “Devils,” which released in South Korea last year.

Greta Gerwig addressed the growing #MeToo movement in France at the jury press conference on opening day of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. “I think people in the community of movies telling us stories and trying to change things for the better is only good,” Gerwig said when asked how she felt about #MeToo-related rumors swirling ahead of the festival. “I have seen substantive change in in the American film community, and I think it’s important that we continue to expand that conversation.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” debuted on top of the mainland China box office with an opening weekend score of $11.4 million (RMB81.1 million). That was only the fourth weekend this year that a Hollywood film has topped the China charts and the third time in 2024 that a Hollywood title has opened on top. “Apes” was also the top film this weekend in North America and international markets. Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway showed that the film accounted for some 30% of the theatrical total on a weekend where theaters earned a combined $38.2 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” opened in second place at the South Korean weekend box office, a distance behind local holdover title “The Roundup: Punishment.” “Punishment,” the fourth part of Don Lee’s “Roundup” action franchise, dominated proceedings for the third weekend in succession. It earned $5.53 million and advanced its cumulative total to $67.7 million, according to Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

The unscripted renewals keep coming at ABC.

NCT Dream have announced their upcoming 2024 ‘The Dream Show 3: Dream( )scape’ world tour, with concerts in Asia, Europe, the US and more.NCT Dream’s 2024 ‘The Dream Show 3: Dream( )scape’ world tour currently features 17 shows across Asia, with concerts in nine different cities. The Latin America, US and Europe legs of the tour will be revealed on May 8.‘The Dream Show 3: Dream( )scape’ kick offed with a three-date concert on May 2 in Seoul, South Korea.

David Benedict Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 animated film “Spirited Away” won everything from the Oscar for Best Animated Feature to Berlin’s Golden Bear. That there’s an audience for a stage version was evidenced by its 2022 Tokyo run selling out in four minutes. Now in London and performed in Japanese with English surtitles, sales are brisk in the 2,263-seat London Coliseum with the limited run now extended by five weeks.

With the fourth series of BBC smash hit Race Across the World now well underway, viewers at home have been excitedly watching a new set of teams try and duke it out for a coveted cash prize by travelling from Japan to Indonesia with only a limited budget. So far, the five teams have made it from Japan to Cambodia after travelling through South Korea and Vietnam, with the gap between each pair getting tighter and tighter.

The Chromatica Ball special is coming, after all!

From appearing alongside Sir Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me to working in the recording studio with Grammy Award-winning producers, Susie Vanner’s life has been one incredible journey. But it hasn’t all been easy. After suffering a brain haemorrhage and being diagnosed with breast cancer, the actress and musician has experienced the highs as well as the lows.

Overmono have announced a ‘Pure Devotion’ world tour that will take place across five dates in autumn 2024. See all the details below.The Welsh electronic duo, made up of brothers Tom and Ed Russell, had already been confirmed for an extensive list of festival appearances for the summer, and they will now be adding major shows across the globe to their schedules.They will begin at Brooklyn’s Paramount on October 4, before heading north to Toronto’s Opera House the following night.

ATEEZ will perform at both huge MLB and NBA homes on their recently extended 12-concert summer ‘TOWARDS THE LIGHT : WILL TO POWER’ tour.That includes a gig at New York’s Citi Field on Saturday, Aug. 3.The quick U.S.

SEVENTEEN is celebrating their best!

EXCLUSIVE: Artist International Group has signed renowned Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura for representation.

Rudie Obias editor If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. After an impressive box office run at the end of 2023 and winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Film earlier this year, Hayao Miyazaki‘s “The Boy and the Heron” is coming to streaming. The epic animated film — starring Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh and Willem Dafoe (in the English dubbed version) — is available to rent and purchase digitally in 4K Ultra HD on Prime Video and Apple TV starting on Tuesday, June 25.

Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes joined BABYMETAL during their set at Sick New World 2024 on Saturday – check out footage below. The Japanese band were playing the Las Vegas festival yesterday (April 27), when they were joined by Sykes on a version of their collaborative track.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Epic war-time survival tale “The Guns of Muschu” has already assembled a weighty cast ahead of a production start in the first quarter of 2025. The film is an adaptation of the non-fiction book “The Guns of Muschu,” written by Don Dennis, with an adapted screenplay by Tom Broadhurst and Jack Brislee (“Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan”). The narrative brings to life a pivotal chapter of Australian war history with gritty authenticity, recounting the high body count Operation Copper, a mission during WWII when Australian and New Zealand troops were sent into the jungles of Papua New Guinea. The objective of the mission was to investigate the Japanese defenses on Muschu Island, capture a Japanese officer for interrogation and discover the location of two naval guns on the island that were protecting a harbor.