City Beijing Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Universal Beijing Resort will begin to restart operations from Saturday (June 25, 2022) after being closed for nearly two months due to COVID. The resort, which includes a theme park, two hotels and a Citywalk retail-entertainment area, closed on May 1 as COVID cases resurfaced in the Chinese capital after months of abeyance. Plans to reopen from June 15 were previously announced, but these were scrapped when the COVID wave flared up again.

EXCLUSIVE: Danielle Deadwyler (Till) has signed on to star alongside Aldis Hodge and his brother Edwin Hodge in the sci-fi thriller Parallel, from director Kourosh Ahari (IFC Films’ The Night), which has entered production in Vancouver.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorSorry, Comcast Xfinity customers: Your free access to the Peacock Premium streaming service is going to come to an end.Jeff Shell, CEO of NBCUniversal, said that making Peacock available to Comcast cable and broadband customers for no extra charge helped the fledgling streamer achieve traction after it launched in mid-2020, speaking Tuesday at the Credit Suisse 24th Annual Communications Conference. However, “At some point we’ll roll that to paid,” Shell said.Currently, Comcast’s Xfinity X1 and Flex customers are eligible to get Peacock Premium with ads for no additional cost; that’s normally priced at $4.99/month.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefA powerfully impressive opening by “Jurassic World Dominion” and a partial reopening of cinemas gave China its biggest box office weekend in more than three months. The dinosaur franchise movie earned $53 million (RMB355 million) in three days in China, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. The film chewed off a massive 88% share of the total weekend market.

Content warning: This article discusses allegations of sexual assault.Kris Wu is to be sentenced over charges of rape and “group licentiousness”, it has been reported, with a secret trial said to have been held in Beijing on Friday (June 10).According to the South China Morning Post, word of the trial was kept hush out of respect for the alleged victim’s safety. It comes 10 months after Wu was formally arrested on suspicion of rape.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese-Canadian superstar Kris Wu is to be sentenced for rape after a secret trial in Beijing on Friday, Hong Kong media reports. He risks spending between three and ten years in jail.Wu was arrested and formally charged in August last year after allegations were made in late July by Du Meizhu, 18, a beauty industry influencer. The woman used social media to accuse the musician and actor of date-raping her while she was 17 and a time when she was drunk.

Refresh for latest…: Universal/Amblin Entertainment’s Jurassic World Dominion is putting its dino-print out in an additional 57 overseas markets this weekend after stomping into 15 early hubs last session. Through Thursday, the Colin Trevorrow-directed threequel has grossed $95.1M at the international box office. When including Friday’s China start, that rises to $110.4M.

SM Entertainment has announced the launch of a new global audition programme in search of new members for boyband NCT.Today (June 10), the South Korean entertainment company announced the forthcoming launch of the ‘Welcome to the NeoCiTy’ audition programme, which will search for new NCT members. It dropped alongside a teaser featuring snippets from various NCT music videos.According to the official application form, SM Entertainment looks set to hold in-person auditions in a total of 14 cities around the world, including Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Seoul, Ho Chi Minh, Bangkok, Jakarta, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Beijing, Osaka, Fukuoka and Tokyo.SM Entertainment is currently looking for male applicants born between 2001 and 2008, in all three categories of vocals, rap and dance.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefFactwire, an independent news agency and publication in Hong Kong, said Friday that it will cease operations with immediate effect.It is the fourth closure in the last year of a significant news organization that is not aligned with the city establishment’s pro-Beijing camp.The injection by Beijing in July 2020 of a National Security Law, and a powerful security apparatus in the city, is seen by media organizations to have significantly reduced the freedoms of the press. The government disputes this analysis, but says that reporting must remain lawful.Factwire, which specialized in investigative reporting, was established in 2015 using HK$4.7 million of funds that were crowd-sourced from 3,300 supporters in three months. It did not pinpoint the reasons for its closure, nor analyze the timing of it.

After more than a month of pandemic-related restrictions, Beijing began a return to normal on Monday. Today, the Universal Beijing Resort said it will resume operations on June 15 in a phased approach. In a memo titled “Restart the blockbuster fun,” the resort’s website noted that online ticket sales start up again on June 11 — that’s one day after the release of Universal/Amblin Entertainment’s Jurassic World Dominion in China.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Universal Beijing Resort is poised to reopen next week after being closed due to the coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese capital.The resort – comprising the Universal Studios Beijing theme park, Citywalk retail and entertainment area and two hotels – is set to restart operations on June 15, it announced Tuesday via its Chinese social media accounts. It has been closed since May 1.The park will be allowed to operate at no more than 75% capacity.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“My Blue Summer,” a local romance led the Chinese box office higher over the latest weekend with a modestly respectable $7.2 million (RMB48.2 million) opening session. But the trend is hard to discern due to continually changing COVID conditions in China and the country’s uncertain economic direction.The nationwide Friday to Sunday box office total was $26.7 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. The total was more than double the $11.5 million achieved the previous weekend.The performance was goosed by the Dragon Boat Holiday weekend, operating June 3-5.

The Sports Emmys held its first in-person ceremony since 2019 on Tuesday night, and NFL Live and ESPN went home with the most wins by program and network, respectively. After tying for the lead last year, the NFL Network program snapped up four trophies to top NBC Sports’ Beijing Winter Olympics coverage (three).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Jack Magic,” a biographical series about Jack Ma, the colorful co-founder of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, is in development at French production house Oble. The series is adapted from Duncan Clark’s best-selling book “Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built.”Details of the series such as start date, director and eventual distributor, broadcaster or streamer have not been revealed.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefLast month’s Udine festival of all things East Asian was the launch pad for “Making Waves — Navigators of Hong Kong Cinema,” a collection of 13 films that will travel to a dozen cities in Europe and Asia. Billed as an “extravaganza,” mixing old and new talent, the event is pegged to the 25th anniversary celebrations of the return of Hong Kong to China after 150 years of British colonial rule.But it is no longer clear to everyone that Hong Kong cinema has the energy, willpower or finance to face down its larger demons.

The dinosaurs are ready to stomp into China with a June 10 date confirmed for Universal’s Jurassic World Dominion. This will be in step with the North American release — a rarity of late — after international rollout begins a few days prior. Universal confirmed the China release date on its official Weibo account with a video from stars Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt. Check out some new posters below.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe mainland China box office remained moribund over the latest weekend, lacking direction or new releases and achieving nationwide revenue of just $11.4 million.The country is continuing to suffer from clusters of COVID infections that have caused mass lockdowns in some cities and the temporary closure of many cinemas. Even as there is now talk of easing restrictions in Shanghai, which had been locked down for five weeks, there is the prospect of new restrictions in capital city Beijing. The government has also imposed a blanket ban on all but essential overseas travel.U.S.

NBC Sports said Thursday that Maria Taylor will be the new host of Football Night in America, NBC’s weekly studio show that leads into the network’s Sunday Night Football.

EXCLUSIVE: Ava DuVernay’s superhero drama Naomi will not be back for a second season on the CW.

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong authorities arrested a Roman Catholic cardinal, a singer and at least two others on Wednesday on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces to endanger China's national security, reports said.Cardinal Joseph Zen, singer-actress Denise Ho, lawyer Margaret Ng and scholar Hui Po-keung were detained by Hong Kong’s National Security Police, the U.K.-based human rights group Hong Kong Watch said.The arrests were apparently related to their roles as trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which provided legal aid to people who took part in 2019 pro-democracy protests that were quashed by security forces, the group said. The fund closed in 2021, it said.Scores of pro-democracy activists have been arrested under a sweeping National Security Law imposed on the city by Beijing in 2020 following the demonstrations.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefIn the early years of the 21st century, bankers to the film industry set their eyes on East Asia and headed for Hong Kong and Beijing. They could see that mainland China’s decision to open the film business to the private sector had the potential to be a game-changer.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor“Good Morning America” eked out a victory on a different battlefield in TV’s ongoing morning-news wars.The ABC News program typically wins the biggest audience among morning-news programs, while NBC News rival “Today” typically dominated in the critical category of viewers between 25 and 54 — the demographic that governs how much advertisers pay for each show. Last week, however, “GMA” prevailed in both, the first time in more than four months that it has done so.“It’s an incredible win as we deal with the challenges of still broadcasting and working during a pandemic,” says Simone Swink, executive producer of “Good Morning America.” “Our team remains laser-focused on delivering the best straightforward, relevant and engaging news.

X Factor winner Alexandra Burke and Paralympian Aled Jones. Ore Oduba remained the only celeb to be eliminated from the 2021 series with the rest all being medically withdrawn.

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Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTheatrical box office in mainland China enjoyed a weekend bounce over the May Day holiday and a new market leader, despite a shortage of fresh titles and mounting cinema closures.Romantic comedy “Stay With Me” was the top-scoring new release title with $8.4 million (RMB55.4 million), according to data from Artisan Gateway, a consultancy and research firm. The film about long distance relationships, distributed by Enlight Pictures, deposed “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” which had held the top spot for three previous weekends. U.S.

After witnessing the carnage on Wall Street after Netflix reported stalling subscriber levels, raising stark questions about the business of streaming, Comcast kept talk of NBCUniversal’s Peacock somewhat limited during its first-quarter earnings call.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterPeacock ended the first quarter of the year with 28 million monthly active accounts (MAAs) and 13 million paid subscribers, Comcast revealed along with its Q1 earnings results Thursday.That total is up from the 24.5 million Comcast reported for the streamer’s end of 2021 figure. During Q1, Peacock streamed Super Bowl LVI and the Beijing Winter Olympics, along with debuting splashy titles like “Bel-Air,” its dramatic take on the ’90s classic “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” Jennifer Lopez’s theatrical-and-streaming release “Marry Me,” and “Tiger King” scripted series “Joe vs.

our new joint venture with Charter. This partnership demonstrates the benefits of our focus on innovation and enables us to bring entertainment aggregation and streaming products that run off our global technology platform to millions more customers.”NBCUniversal’s revenue in particular went up 46.6% to $10.3 billion quarter over quarter, but even excluding the Super Bowl and Olympics, the media unit still saw a growth of 36.3%, the studios unit went up 15.1%, and theme parks skyrocketed quarter over quarter 151.9% due to the parks operating at a lower capacity due to COVID.

Comcast began 2022 on a strong note, reporting first-quarter results ahead of Wall Street expectations with highlights including ad revenue from Super Bowl LVI and the Beijing Olympics.