Sony Taking ‘Very Seriously’ Indian Regulator’s Order Barring Zee Top Management Ahead of Merger

Refresh for latest…: Busy weekend at the international box office with a strong scary new entry, some unexpected spark in holds and a milestone for a long-running franchise.

Tom Cruise has no intention of slowing down.

Naman Ramachandran Disney’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £7.1 million ($9 million), according to numbers released by Comscore. The release marked the fifth biggest opening weekend for a film in 2023 in the territory, including previews, with a market share of 43%. In its fifth weekend, Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” racked up a further £1.5 million in second place, taking its total to £25.9 million. Universal’s “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” debuted in third position with £885,056. In its sixth weekend, Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” earned £837,859 in fourth place for a total of £25 million.

Disney+ Hotstar lost the rights to offer Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket last year, but the streamer remains India’s market leader, according to Ampere Analysis.

Indiana Jones has been entertaining audiences for four decades, and the fifth movie is keeping up the tradition. In the past, Indiana Jones has worked toward stopping the Nazis in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," found himself on a dangerous adventure in India in "Temple of Doom," working against the Nazis to find the Holy Grail in "Last Crusade," and racing against the Soviets in search for a hidden artifact with his long-lost son in Peru in "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." The newest movie, "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," follows the famous architect on a journey with his goddaughter, Helena Shaw, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, on their way to find a dial that is said to hold the powers of changing history.

Naman Ramachandran SonyLIV has acquired exclusive streaming rights to acclaimed Bangladeshi films “Hawa” and “Saturday Afternoon” from Reliance Entertainment and Continental Entertainment PTE Ltd (CEPL). Directed by Mejbaur Rahman Sumon, “Hawa” follows the journey of an all-men team on a fishing trawler, whose routine is disrupted when they haul in a mysterious catch. The cast is led by hugely popular star Chanchal Chowdhury and includes Nazifa Tushi, Sariful Islam Razz, Sumon Anowar, Nasir Uddin Khan and Shohel Mondol. The film was Bangladesh’s entry to the Oscars and is one of the highest grossers from the country having also found distribution in India, Singapore and the Middle East. It will premiere July 7 on SonyLIV.

Naman Ramachandran Sony Music-owned music distribution company AWAL has launched in India and South Asia, following the acquisition of OKListen, a digital music platform for independent artists and record labels. Based in Mumbai and supported by Sony Music India, AWAL will offer independent artists in the region a range of services including global marketing, creative, synch and brand partnerships, radio promotion and distribution as well as access to real-time music analytics. Vijay Basrur, who founded OKListen in 2012 as India’s first homegrown digital distribution service, has been appointed head of India and South Asia, AWAL, reporting into Lonny Olinick, CEO of AWAL and Vinit Thakkar, managing director, Sony Music India.

Eva Bourne has her palm read in this sneak peek from her new Hallmark Channel movie, Make Me A Match.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is taking an interim regulatory order against ZEE Entertainment directors Subhash Chandra and Punit Goenka “very seriously,” despite concerns over what it could mean for the two companies’ merger.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros.’ superhero film “The Flash” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £4.2 million ($5.4 million), according to numbers released by Comscore. In second place, in its third weekend, Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” swung to £2.6 million for a total of £20.3 million. In third position in its fourth weekend, Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” earned £1.3 million and now has a splashy £22 million total. Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts” collected £1.1 million in fourth place in its second weekend for a total of £4.99 million. Elysian’s “Greatest Days” debuted in fifth position with £536,955.

Scam 1992 is one of India’s highest-profile drama series of the streaming era and its sequel now has a release date.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Mother of all Lies, a docu-drama film that probes the secrets of Morocco’s 1981 Bread Riots, was Sunday named the best picture at the Sydney Film Festival. The jury, headed by Anurag Kashyap, called the Asmae El Moudir-directed film “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous.” It presented the A$60,000 ($41,100) cash prize film ahead at the State Theatre ahead of the Australian premiere screening of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” The film, which uses doll-like figurines, recently premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, where it earned the section’s best director prize. “Juxtaposing evidence from barely existent public materials with private family memory, this film reconstructs the history of the state, the family and the individual, in three distinct levels,” said the jury of Kashyap, actor Mia Wasikowska (Australia), film curator and journalist Dorothee Wenner (Germany), writer and director Larissa Behrendt (Australia) and filmmaker Visakesa Chandrasekaram (Australia – Sri Lanka).

Mads Mikkelsen has said it’s an “enormous honour” to be in the upcoming new Indiana Jones film, India Jones and the Dial of Destiny.Mikkelsen, who plays villain Jürgen Voller in the film, said it felt that way due to his personal connection to the franchise – something he said he “grew up with”.During a recent press conference about the film, Mikkelsen said: “It’s not my first franchise, but it’s the first one I grew up with. I’ve been lying in all the other interviews when I did Bond and Star Wars.

Kourtney Kardashian may have the kind of jet-setting lifestyle some can only dream of, but there’s no need to be green with envy — when you can be green with her favorite matcha-based product instead.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has unveiled a new teaser for “The Archies,” a coming-of-age, live action musical set in 1960s India based on the teenagers of Riverdale. “The Archies” is a feature film adaptation of the Archie comics, which are hugely popular on the Indian subcontinent. The teaser, released during Netflix’s Tudum fan event, reveals that the film is set in 1964 in Riverdale, described on a railway sign as a “hill station,” a term dating back to colonial time that refers to a town located at a higher elevation than the nearby plain. One of the transport links servicing the hill stations are small mountain railway trains running on narrow gauge tracks, known affectionately in India as “toy trains” and the teaser opens with a shot of top train puffing into Riverdale station.

A university student has been caged after carrying a drunk woman to his halls of residence after a night out and raping her while she was passed out.

Chris Hemsworth is providing some clarity to the comments he made about taking some time off from acting.

The Sundance Institute revealed on Wednesday that it has received the largest endowment gift in its history, a $4M endowment in support of the the Institute’s Indigenous Program from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, which will provide new support for artists from California-based tribes, both federally and non-federally recognized.

Indian Matchmaking could be a match for Emmy voters. Season 2 of the Netflix series is up for consideration as Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program, following season 1’s nomination in that same category. Season 3 of  the show, which premiered on Netflix last month, takes audiences to the U.K. for the first time, peeking into the lives of the young Indians living in London searching for their ideal love match with the expert guidance of the show’s captivating yet feisty matchmaker, Seema Taparia.

Naman Ramachandran Parambrata Chattopadhyay is the latest actor to play Oscar-winning Indian master Satyajit Ray’s detective Prodosh Chandra Mitter AKA Feluda in streamer ZEE5 Global’s series “Shabash Feluda.” Feluda first appeared in the Ray family’s Bengali-language magazine Sandesh in 1965. Ray directed two Feluda films, “The Golden Fortress” (1974) and “The Elephant God” (1978), where the Bengali detective was played by his frequent collaborator Soumitra Chatterjee. Feluda has subsequently been played by a range of Indian actors, including Shashi Kapoor, Abir Chatterjee, Tota Roy Chowdhury, Indraneil Sengupta and Bangladesh’s Ahmed Rubel. The detective is part of the fabric of growing up in West Bengal and Bangladesh, akin to what Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple used to be for several generations in the west.