Sony Pictures Profits Slip by 10%, Despite Marginal Sales Gain

EXCLUSIVE: Studiocanal and The Picture Company have acquired the rights to the French film Rodeo. The companies plan to transplant the premise to the U.S. and tap into the underground world of street motocross racing.Helmed by first-time filmmaker Lola Quivoron, the original won the Coup de Coeur Jury Award in the Un Certain Regard Section of Cannes in 2022. It was based on Quivoron’s experiences photographing the French city’s urban dirt bike community and the people she met inspired the film.

Sony Pictures Animation is currently making Goat, an original animated sports comedy from producers Stephen Curry and Erick Peyton of Unanimous Media, Oscar nominee Michelle Raimo Kouyate (The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story, Silver Linings Playbook), and Adam Rosenberg (Creed 3) and Academy Award winner Rodney Rothman (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) of Modern Magic.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Sony Pictures Entertainment’s senior management says it remains “optimistic” about the future of cinema, despite a slow start to the North American summer season and industry talk of superhero fatigue. Speaking on a Sony Group Corporation conference call (on Thursday in Japan, Wednesday in Los Angeles), Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra blamed current box office torpor on three prongs of disruption that have affected movie production over the past five years: competition with streaming; the disruptions and cost increases brought on by the COVID-era; and last year’s writers and actors strikes. Together these have led to fewer films reaching theaters.

For more than week, it’s been crickets when it comes to the push and pull between Skydance and Sony Pictures Entertainment/Apollo over Paramount Global.

NP Singh, the long-serving leader of Sony’s networks business in India, is stepping down from the C-suite.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Sony is to launch an academy that will develop talent involved in the creation of anime, it was announced on Thursday. The initiative was revealed as part of Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony Group Corporation’s annual corporate strategy presentation.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Veteran unscripted producer Jeff Collins (“Dance Moms”) has sealed an overall deal with Sony Pictures Television – Nonfiction. Under the pact, Collins and his newly launched Resilient Content shingle will focus on creating unscripted programming and developing formats for broadcast, cable and streaming.

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.

Naman Ramachandran International sales agent Incredible Film has secured global distribution rights to “Amsterdamned II,” the sequel to Dick Maas’ 1988 cult classic, “Amsterdamned.” Veteran Dutch actor Huub Stapel reprises his role as detective Eric Visser, who once pursued a serial killer through the Dutch canals three decades ago, as he is brought back from retirement by a revelation that shakes him to his core. In the sequel, also directed by Maas, Visser and fellow detective Tara Lee fight against an evil that threatens them and the city of Amsterdam. The film is a coproduction from the Netherlands’ 2CFilm and Parachute Pictures and Belgium’s Potemkino.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has seen operating income fall nearly 10% for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024.

EXCLUSIVE: Animation-focused sales company Gebeka International has acquired world sales rights to an upcoming 4K remastered version of Japanese animation director Mamoru Oshii’s 1985 animated feature Angel’s Egg. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Kii Muneyuki, a former head of production at Japan’s Toei, is launching K2 Pictures, a company that aims to upend Japanese filmmaking practices. Its debut slate, with films by Kore-eda Hirokazu, Iwai Shunji and Nishikawa Miwa, will be unveiled in Cannes next week. A key part of the new company’s strategy is the establishment of a film fund, K2P Film Fund I, that will invest in live action and animations productions.

Former Toei producer Muneyuki Kim has launched K2 Pictures, which will work with major directors such as Hirokazu Kore-eda and aim to create a new funding ecosystem for Japanese animated and live-action features.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Sony Pictures Entertainment has completed state-of-the-art upgrades to its mix stages. Among the soundstages that underwent substantial improvements are the Cary Grant, William Holden, Kim Novak, Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn and Jimmy Stewart theaters, as well as Dub Stage 17.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean sales firm Finecut has inked multiple deals for horror thriller “Noise” and for “A Traveler’s Needs,” the recent Berlin prize-winner directed by Hong Sangsoo.“Noise” is a “multi-sensory and realistic horror” film that intertwines societal motifs of “floor noise” with suspenseful elements. Directed by Kim Soo-jin, the film centers around a woman with a hearing aid haunted by inexplicable sounds linked to her sister’s disappearance in her own apartment and attracting a malevolent presence.

While Emma Bunton may be a household name, the former Spice Girl is known for keeping her two children far away from the limelight, rarely posting them to social media. But this week, the singer, 48, took to Instagram to mark her youngest child Tate's 13th birthday with a sweet post, giving an insight into the birthday celebrations. In the carousel of snaps posted, birthday banners and pink balloons could be seen around Emma's home, while Tate had a personalised chocolate cake.The family enjoyed a pre-birthday dinner at Shoreditch House's Japanese restaurant Pen Yen, while Tate's friends appeared to be there celebrating on the day with an at-home party.

MadRiver Pictures has closed a multi-year equity financing and distribution deal with several major international distribution partners which gives it the ability to fully finance films at a budget of $25M-$75M for the global theatrical marketplace.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Indie Sales has acquired Japanese director Momoko Seto’s “Dandelion’s Odyssey,” an ecological fable animated by Guionne Leroy (“Toy Story”) and scored by Nicolas Becker (“Sound of Metal”) and Quentin Sirjacq. Shot from Japan to Iceland, “Dandelion’s Odyssey” is an adventure set in a dystopian world and is reminiscent of “Microcosmos,” with plants and animals as the main characters. The feature boasts a mix of timelapse photography, as well as live-action shooting and 3D animation.

Princ Films boards ‘Isabel’s Garden’ For Cannes Marche Du Film