Frater Asia Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. Discovery is to significantly expand its investment and production of Japanese anime through its existing local studio in Japan. “We have a Japanese anime studio, which has been producing five or ten anime series per year, over the last few years,” said James Gibbons, WBD president of Asia-Pacific. “We’ve approved expansion to take that to more than ten series per year.” The studio has been operational since 2011 and delivered over 80 titles in that span, a mix of high-quality anime, live action series and movies.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Osaka-based Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation will launch ytv animation, a new brand that will leverage Yomiuri TV’s long history in animation, while also undertaking more challenging titles. The move comes a day ahead of the Anime Japan 2024 convention being held at Tokyo Big Sight. It also comes “ahead of the 60th anniversary in 2027 of Yomiuri TV’s airing of ‘Golden Bat’ in 1967,” the company said. “We will leverage our nearly 60 years of experience producing and broadcasting anime to bring exciting titles to our fans,” said ytv animation producer in a prepared statement.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Shayda,” a breakout indie movie from Noora Niasari, and Kitty Green’s high-temperature drama “The Royal Hotel” were named best film winners at the annual SPA Awards, presented by the Screen Producers Australia association. The ceremony took place Thursday at Queensland’s Gold Coast, during the annual Screen Forever conference. The event was hosted by actor and comedian Matt Okine. Production company Werner Film, which this week announced its acquisition by the BBC, took three awards including the coveted Media Super Production Business of the year prize. “It’s clear that our production community continues to thrive in the face of a rapidly changing landscape.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Miyazaki Hayao’s “The Boy and the Heron,” which recently won the Oscar for best animated feature film, will head to global streaming giant Netflix later this year, excluding the U.S. and Japan. The hand-drawn, critically acclaimed fantasy adventure film is part of a renewed worldwide catalog deal between Netflix and the Japanese producer Studio Ghibli, sales agent Goodfellas and independent distributor GKids.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief All-female Korean-pop act Aespa will release its first concert film “aespa World Tour in Cinemas” from next month. The film will have a limited run playing globally on April 24 and 27, it was announced by Trafalgar Releasing, one of the firms behind the “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” movie. The company did not disclose the local releasing partners but said that the film will play in premium formats, including ScreenX, 4DX and Ultra 4DX where available. Aespa’s first world tour “aespa LIVE TOUR 2023 SYNK : HYPER LINE,” ran from Feb. to Sept., 2023, visiting 21 venues across four continents. Launched in 2020 by Korea’s SM Entertainment, the group plays in a range from hip hop and EDM to ‘hyperpop.’ Known for futuristic stage visuals, high-energy choreography and captivating vocals, Aespa was the third K-Pop act to perform at Coachella, in 2022. The new film captures Aespa’s concert at London’s O2 Arena, Aespa’s first-ever U.K.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Jason Arrow will reprise the role of Alexander Hamilton as the hit stage musical “Hamilton” returns to Australia later this year. The production will play a limited engagement at the Sydney Lyric Theatre from July 30 through to the end of October, 2024. Sydney is the only city the production will play before leaving Australia. The original Australian “Hamilton” premiered at the Sydney Lyric Theatre in March, 2021, before touring to Melbourne, Brisbane and New Zealand, concluding in June. “We know we have so much unfinished business left with Sydney and we can’t wait to get back to “Hamilton’s” original Australian home.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China’s social media, games and video giant Tencent saw 2023 revenues advance by 10% to $84.6 billion (RMB609 billion). But its net profits slid to $16.3 billion (RMB118 billion), down from $26.3 billion a year earlier. The group is directly affected by weakness in the mainland Chinese economy, which has recovered only slowly since the end of the COVID pandemic, and by ongoing regulatory concerns.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Fashion, East-West Asian identities, corporate espionage and romance are on the agenda in “Morning, Paris!,” a new mini-series project being pitched at Series Mania by veteran filmmaker Quentin Lee (“The People I’ve Slept With,” “White Frog”). “’Morning, Paris!’ is a heartfelt comedy about a young modern BIPOC Canadian woman discovering herself in the most romantic city in the world,” says Lee. “Or put another way, it is a limited television series about an aspiring female fashion designer from Vancouver who ends up in Paris Fashion week with a very unlikely companion because she wants to spy on her boss on whom she has a crush.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Five months of production has been completed on Jacob Elordi-starring drama series “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” which is set in the “Euphoria” and “Saltburn” star’s native Australia. An adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel by Richard Flanaghan, the five-part series is love-story set against the backdrop of World War II. Elordi portrays Lieutenant-Colonel Dorrigo Evans and co-stars with Odessa Young (“Mothering Sunday,” “Shirley”).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A trio of seasoned Australian television industry figures are launching a new production company, Lantern Pictures. They aim to produce a slate of independent TV content and to help implant the U.S. system of creative showrunners into the Australian scene.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Australian TV producer Bunya Entertainment says that Sophia Zachariou will step down as co-managing director, after a five-year stint. Bunya Entertainment is one part the Bunya Group of companies and was established by Zachariou, David Jowsey and Greer Simpkin in 2019. Zachariou is currently in post-production on “The Office” (Amazon) and “Ladies in Black” (ABC) and will deliver these series before she departs the company.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Net profits at Tencent Music Entertainment, China’s largest digital music company, climbed 36% to reach $735 million (RMB5.22 billion) in 2023 – despite revenues declining by 2% to $3.91 billion. Fourth quarter profits were worth $198 million (RMB1.41 billion), earned from revenues 7% down at $971 million (RMB6.89 billion). The final figures cap a year in which the New York and Hong Kong listed subsidiary of Tencent saw monthly active user (MAU) numbers fall as it successfully organized the transition of a growing number of free users into paying subscribers. In the full year, revenues from music streaming subscriptions grew by 39% to $1.70 billion. That resulted from a 21% growth in the number of paying subscribers (from 88.5 million to 107 million) and a 20% increase in the average revenue per subscriber to RMB10.7 or $1.49.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Boy and the Heron,” the Oscar-winning animated feature film by iconic Japanese director Miyazaki Hayao, is finally to be given a release in cinemas in mainland China. The picture is scheduled to release in China on April 3, 2024, according to Alibaba Pictures. Tickets are already available on booking sites such as Maoyan and Alibaba’s Taopiaopiao.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief V from Korean pop icons BTS will Tuesday unveil a live performance video in collaboration with French luxury brand Cartier in support of his – already hit – new digital single “FRI(END)S.” Released at 1 p.m. Korean time on Friday, “FRI(END)S” is a pop soul song that is the artist’s first solo project since “Layover,” his debut solo album released in September. The English-language song is a love song depicting one person’s confession of love to a friend.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Beverley McGarvey has been appointed president of Network 10, head of streaming and regional lead for Australia and New Zealand, with immediate effect by Paramount Global. She reports to Pam Kaufman, president & CEO of international markets, global consumer products and experiences at the group.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Previews for Universal Pictures and Dreamworks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 4” put the Chinese-themed film in fourth place at the mainland China box office, a week ahead of its official theatrical debut. Over the March 15-17 weekend, however, first and second places remained with holdover titles “The Pig, The Snake and the Pigeon” and “Dune: Part Two.” Taiwanese crime film “The Pig, The Snake and the Pigeon,” already playing on Netflix in territories outside China, topped the mainland China chart for the third successive weekend. According to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway, it earned $11.1 million (RMB79.1 million), for a cumulative of $73.2 million (RMB520 million).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The South Korean box office had a familiar look. Dark drama, “Exhuma” dominated the chart with a more than 50% market share for the fourth weekend in a row. And, for the third successive weekend, “Dune 2” placed second. “Exhuma,” about two shaman, a feng shui master and a mortician who attempt to reverse the mysterious events happening to a U.S.-based Korean family, earned $5.80 million between Friday and Sunday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Linmon Pictures, one of the most outward-looking mainland Chinese entertainment firms, is preparing premium series “Hate Coin.” The show is being produced in association with Jonathan Wong and Justina Shih’s production company Octagon Metatainment, a Hong Kong-based multimedia studio. “Hate Coin” is based on international best-selling novel “Second Sister,” by successful Hong Kong novelist Chan Ho Kei, whose previous book “The Borrowed” was a crime story that panned five-decades. The story follows the activities of a young woman whose school-age sister appeared to have committed suicide. Suspecting foul play, the woman trams up with a manipulative hacker and cybersecurity expert to try to dig deeper. “What follows is a cat and mouse game through the city of Hong Kong and its digital underground, especially an online gossip platform, where someone has been slandering Siu-Man.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Richard Roxburgh, star of hit Netflix show “Rake” and “Elvis,” stars in “The Correspondent,” a fact-based thriller. He portrays Peter Greste, the veteran Australian TV news reporter who was kidnapped in Cairo in 2013 while reporting for Al Jazeera. Production of “The Correspondent” wrapped in Sydney, Australia after being directed by Kriv Stenders, who enjoyed major success in Australia with “Red Dog” and also directed hit “Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan.” The film is based on Greste’s memoir “The First Casualty” and has an adapted screenplay by Peter Duncan (“Rake,” “Operation Buffalo”).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hollywood producer and financier Joseph Cohen (“Brokeback Mountain,” “12 Years A Slave,” “Sicario,” “La La Land”) is launching a new company in Hong Kong called MediaRealm Advisors Asia. It will provide consulting services to Asia-based institutional and professional investors looking to invest in American Entertainment Investors mainstream Hollywood movie projects. He is joined in the venture by Hong Kong and Tokyo based Adam Guy Orlebar Garrett.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Orange Sky Golden Harvest, the multi-territory cinema operator, Wednesday warned that it would return to losses when it reports its 2023 losses. The announcement, made in a regulatory filing, came just days after the company denied that it was preparing to sell off its cinemas in Singapore, which represent the biggest component of its business.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief South Korean cinema-goers will get a three-day jump on the rest of the world when the Bong Joon-ho-directed “Mickey 17” releases in January 2025 in time for the Lunar New Year holidays. Warner Bros. Pictures says that the Robert Pattinson-starring sci-fi film will open in Korea on Tuesday, Jan.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong’s Film Development Council has unveiled the first shortlisted projects under its new scheme to develop content for streaming platforms. The Content Development Scheme for Streaming Platforms was announced last year. It aims to nurture cross-sectoral production teams and expand new distribution market and takes the form of a competition to recruit participating teams that develop a mini-series for streaming platforms.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Pleasant Outcast,” a 10-part Korean series that is set to appear at Canneseries next month, is a companion piece to “Concrete Utopia,” the hit film from last year that was selected as South Korea’s Oscar contender. Both the Lotte Cultureworks series and “Concrete Utopia,” a dystopian drama-thriller set in a post-apocalyptic Seoul, are adapted from best-selling webtoon “Cheerful Outcast,” by Kim Soong Nyung. The film was frequently compared to William Golding’s seminal novel from the 1954 “Lord of the Flies” and its 1964 film adaptation. Using the first part of the webtoon, the series follows Dong-hyun, a high school junior, who barely survives his day-to-day bullying at school.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Escaping Man,” a Chinese drama feature about a man dragged into a kidnap plot, heads the FilMart slate of Hong Kong-based sales agency Autumn Sun Company. The protagonist is a man who spent 20 years in jail after being falsely accused of rape. After his release, he intends to confront the woman, but instead falls for her again — to the point that she is able to manipulate him into kidnapping the child for which she is the nanny.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Peter Chan Ho-sun has assembled a starry cast headed by Zhang Ziyi and box office sensation Lei Jiayin for his new feature film “She Has No Name.” The film, which recently completed principal photography, probes the progress of women’s rights in China. “One woman’s suffering gives rise to the revolution of women’s social rights in China,” reads a tagline.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Thailand is poised to get serious about its commitment to the film industry, and plans to launch a major new body, the Thailand Creative Culture Agency, with a budget of THB7 billion ($200 million). Long a destination for Hollywood, China and India productions, and currently playing host to the lensing of Season 3 of “The White Lotus,” Thailand has many of the elements that could contribute to building a major film industry. These include diverse locations, skilled crews, studio facilities and a location production, or incentive, scheme.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China’s unprecedented economic and social transformation in the latter part of the 20th century has been picked over in dozens of movies by filmmakers ranging from Jia Zhangke to Wang Xiaoshuai. But with more than one billion people affected by China’s transformation, there is no shortage of personal stories and no end of ways to tell the tale. Sophomore filmmaker Huo Meng trains his eye on one of those stories in his second film, “The Wind Is Unstoppable,” which he is just finishing off.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Dune 2” launched in mainland China cinemas this weekend with a solid $19.9 million three-day haul. That put it in second place, narrowly behind holdover crime-drama “The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon.” Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway, showed that “The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon” earned $21.3 million (RMB151 million) between Friday and Sunday, for a 10-day cumulative of $54.1 million (RMB384 million).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chan Tai-lee, the screenwriter of many of the Ip Man martial arts action films, has written and directed upcoming action film “Fight for Tomorrow.” Mandarin Motion Pictures, which backed the film and is handling international rights sales, is using this week’s FilMart to launch the picture to international buyers. The production was assisted with finance from the Hong Kong Film Development Fund.