City Shanghai Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Secret Cinema, the London-based immersive entertainment company, has been acquired by TodayTix of the U.S. plans for a national tour Stateside in 2023 and a permanent location in LA.

EXCLUSIVE: Punchdrunk, the immersive theater company behind New York City’s long-running Sleep No More production, has signed with CAA.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japan’s biggest film group Toho announced that it has taken a controlling stake in TIA (previously Toho Interactive Animation), a production company behind the “100 Nichikan Ikita Wani,” film and anime series “iii icecrin,” “iii icecrin2” “Ninja Collection” and “That Is the Bottleneck.” Originally known as I&A, the company was established in 2017 by ILCA and Anima. The name changed to TIA after Toho bought a nearly 35% from the two founders in 2020. Toho has now bought out Anima’s stake, giving it a 67.4% majority holding and cause to rename the company again, this time to Toho Animation Studio. Deal terms were not disclosed.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor An anime series based on popular open-world role-playing game “Genshin Impact” is officially in the works. HoYoverse, the Shanghai-based game developer behind “Genshin Impact,” announced a partnership with Japanese animation studio Ufotable to develop an anime based on the RPG. It also released a three-minute “concept trailer” in announcing the project (watch below). “Let’s step into this vast magical world of adventure together!” the games company tweeted Friday. “The long-term collaboration project between Genshin Impact and ufotable has begun.” The companies did not reveal an anticipated release date for the anime series, nor does the trailer provide firm clues as to what the show’s plot may center on.

With no new wide Hollywood tentpole releases until October, we’re in a period of holdovers, and local titles excelling in their home markets (and beyond), while Top Gun: Maverick continues to soar and there’s a will it or won’t it question mark over Jurassic World Dominion‘s shot at getting to $1B global.

Universal/Illumination’s Minions: The Rise Of Gru bowed in China today (Friday), grossing an estimated RMB 21.74M ($3.2M), including midnights. This was good for the biggest opening day of a Hollywood animated film during the pandemic.

The Festival of Fantasy parade tonight at Disney World is going to have some extra bounce in its step after today’s quarterly earnings report from the House of Mouse.

China has set an August 19 release date for Universal/Illumination’s Minions: The Rise Of Gru. This will be the first major tentpole from Hollywood to hit the market since Universal’s own Jurassic World Dominion which has grossed $157.4M there through Sunday and during an extended nine-week run; it is the biggest studio import of 2022.

These are your Manchester United evening headlines for Sunday, August 7.

From a reported revenue of $74 million — up 45% year-over-year from $51 million in Q2 2021 — Imax reported a diluted loss per share of 5 cents. That is up from a diluted loss per share of 23 cents last quarter and loss per share of 16 cents in Q2 2021, though below the profit of 17 cents per share reported in Q4 2021 off the success of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”Imax’s write-down is largely attributable to COVID-19 closures at 400 of their Chinese locations to start the quarter, including all locations in Shanghai.

Naman Ramachandran Global Indian origin actors Pallavi Sharda (“Tom & Jerry,” “Lion”) and Suraj Sharma (“Life of Pi,” “How I Met Your Father”) star in Netflix romantic comedy “Wedding Season,” directed by “Shanghai Noon” and “Showtime” filmmaker Tom Dey.Variety has secured access to an exclusive clip from the film, which is produced by Imagine Entertainment, in association with Jax Media and Samosa Stories. The lead producer is Swati Shetty, who previously had senior management stints with Imagine, Netflix and Disney India and produced “Umrika,” starring Sharma, which won awards at Sundance, Palm Springs and Cairo.As a studio executive, Shetty shepherded Disney India’s first live action film “Do Dooni Char,” and Netflix’s “Love Per Square Foot,” “Rajma Chawal” and “Lust Stories.” “All these were films that I pushed for and championed from the studio side — so clearly, this is not the first in that sense,” Shetty told Variety.

Zach Galligan, who starred as Billy Peltzer in the Gremlins films, will have a recurring guest role in Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, it was revealed during the show’s panel at Comic-Con on Friday. The animated prequel series will debut on HBO Max next year and later on Cartoon Network.

Wilson Chapman editorThe “Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai” cast is officially stacked. The prequel series just announced a whole new line-up of celebrity voice talent at their San Diego Comic-Con panel including the return of original Billy, Zach Galligan.Galligan surprised fans on stage revealing that he will have a recurring guest role on the HBO Max series “Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai.” But that’s not all, the panel also announced a truly iconic list of guest stars for the new series including: Sandra Oh, Randall Park, George Takei and Bowen Yang.  The series had already announced a roster of Hollywood icons before including, James Hong, BD Wong, Ming-Na Wen and Matthew Rhys.“Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai” is set in 1920s Shanghai in East China, and focuses on Sam Wing (Izaac Wang), an ordinary 10-year-old boy who meets Gizmo (A.J.

Actress Rebecca Rittenhouse and Kelly Lamor Wilson attend the opening of HermèsFIT in Los Angeles on Wednesday (July 20) held at the Hollywood Athletic Club, where they enjoyed a performance by Neil Frances.

Manori Ravindran International EditorThe Belfast Film Festival has named Variety film critic Jessica Kiang and Rose Baker as its new programmers, and has also launched an inaugural feature competition.Kiang and Baker will serve as the creative leads for this year’s BFF, which runs from Nov. 3-12.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefWanda Film, China’s largest cinema operator, has forecast a return to heavy losses for the first half of 2022. In a regulatory filing, the company warned of net losses (including non-recurring items) reaching between RMB 580 million – RMB 660 million ($85 million – $97.8 million) for the six months to June. That compares with a net profit of RMB613 million $90.8 million in the equivalent period last year.The company pointed to the impact of COVID-control measures in China, which it said caused the temporary closure of 415 of its multiplexes and led film distributors to reduce the supply of new movies to cinemas.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefWildBrain CPLG, a leading entertainment, sport and brand-licensing agency, has been appointed by Peanuts Worldwide as the exclusive licensing agent for the Peanuts brand in parts of Asia-Pacific.   The companies already have a licensing relationship in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and, more recently, India.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefNi Kuang, one of Hong Kong’s most distinguished screenwriters and novelists, has died. He was 87.He died on Sunday in Hong Kong, with local media reporting skin cancer as the cause of death.Ni wrote some 300 screenplays, many in the martial arts genre and many for the Shaw Brothers studio with co-writer Chang Chen. He wrote the scripts for classic films “The 36th Chamber of Shaolin” and “One Armed Swordsman” and had a hand in two of Bruce Lee’s six movies “The Big Boss” and “Fist of Fury” though the writing credit went to Wei Lo.As a novelist, Ni wrote the “New Adventures of Wesley” a series of detective stories that often featured aliens and extra-terrestrial creatures.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Shanghai Disneyland theme park will reopen to visitors later this week, park management announced on Tuesday. Tickets will go on sale Wednesday, ahead of a resumption of operations on Thursday.The park was shuttered on March 21, 2022, as city authorities tried to contain the fast-spreading omicron variant of the COVID-19 disease.Management said that the park will see a “careful ramp up of operations.” In the first stage of reopening it will resume operations with limited daily capacity and enhanced health and safety protocols.” These will include unspecified capacity limits.

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.

“Spiderhead” last week, but in addition to debuting a new thriller starring Chris Hemsworth and Miles Teller, the streamer also unveiled a truly killer soundtrack of yacht rock staples – and you can see the full “Spiderhead” soundtrack list below.Directed by Joseph Kosinski (“Top Gun: Maverick”) and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (“Deadpool”), “Spiderhead” is based on a dystopian short story by George Saunders and takes place entirely at a facility called – you guessed it – Spiderhead. Run by Chris Hemsworth’s Steve Abnesti, this facility is host to prisoners serving long sentences who have agreed to take part in an experimental drug trial in exchange for more freedoms (there’s an open door policy, snacks and individual bedrooms).But as Teller’s prisoner character Jeff soon learns, there may be more than meets the eye when it comes to the true nature behind these experimental drug trials.One thing that keeps “Spiderhead” somewhat light in the face of some pretty dark subject matter is its soundtrack, which is largely diegetic as Abnesti is keen on playing tunes throughout the facility.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentHBO Max’s animated prequel series “Gremlins: Spirit of the Mogwai,” which world premiered on June 16 at France’s Annecy Animation Festival, begins with a hint of “The Sound of Music.”A young Gizmo stands in his bucolic grassy homeland, hidden down a huge hole in snowbound high Himalayas, chanting from a circular stone dias, replete with mysterious engravings. As his fellow Mogwai chant back, positioned on grassy knolls around him, suddenly the hills are alive with the sound of Mogwai.Then a shadow falls out of the sky – a huge heinous eagle plummeting towards the Mogwai.

As some fans complain about rising ticket prices at its theme parks, Disney is offering what it calls “a bucket list adventure” for 75 well-heeled guests.

In partnership with HennessyParked in the middle of one of the Capital’s most bustling water lanes, AJ Tracey performs live from a slick, jet-black basketball court in front of Tower Bridge. Flanked by Uber boats and tourist cruises, he’s taken to the barge-turned-court-turned-stage to kick off the opening ceremony for the unveiling of the UK’s first floating basketball court, which is travelling down the River Thames between Woolwich and The Houses of Parliament – a collaboration between Hennessy and the National Basketball Association (NBA), in a three-day celebration of the sport in London.The floating court is the latest launch in the ‘Courts Beyond Limits’ series, a global collaboration from Hennessy and the NBA that unveils first-of-their-kind basketball courts at iconic locations around the world, and has already hosted pop-ups in Sydney, Lagos, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

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.

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.

In partnership with HennessyTonight (June 9), AJ Tracey is set to play a special live streamed gig on the UK’s first floating basketball court for the Hennessy x NBA.The event is set to take place to begin three days of celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the NBA and the ongoing 2022 Finals. After the floating court docks at Butler’s Wharf this evening, Tracey will perform an exclusive set live streamed to fans around the world from 7.30pm BST.The rapper said: “It’s incredible getting NBA fans, like myself, to come together and celebrate the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Season this year.“Moments like this really put London’s love of the game on the map, and with the ongoing support from Hennessy, I’m excited to see the impact it has on basketball in the UK and the communities it’s giving back to.”Tune into the live stream via the link below.Across three days this weekend, Hennessy x NBA will take over London with a huge celebration of all things basketball as part of their Courts Beyond Limits series, which sees Hennessy and the NBA unveiling one-of-a-kind basketball courts in unique locations around the world.

In partnership with HennessyTonight (June 9), AJ Tracey is set to play a special live streamed gig on the UK’s first floating basketball court for the NBA x Hennessy.The event is set to take place to begin three days of celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the NBA and the ongoing 2022 Finals. After the floating court docks at Butler’s Wharf this evening, Tracey will perform an exclusive set live streamed to fans around the world from 7.30pm BST.The rapper said: “It’s incredible getting NBA fans, like myself, to come together and celebrate the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Season this year.“Moments like this really put London’s love of the game on the map, and with the ongoing support from Hennessy, I’m excited to see the impact it has on basketball in the UK and the communities it’s giving back to.”Tune into the live stream via the link below.Across three days this weekend, NBA x Hennessy will take over London with a huge celebration of all things basketball as part of their Courts Beyond Limits series, which sees Hennessy and the NBA unveiling one-of-a-kind basketball courts in unique locations around the world.

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.

announced Monday.The city of roughly 25 million people, one of the world’s major financial hubs, has been under lockdown for more than two months. City-wide restrictions were lifted last week, but some neighborhoods have been placed back under the tight lockdown as cases continue to emerge.SIFF officials said the fest was “postponed” until 2023.