Alibaba Pictures to Pay $167 Million for Damai, Chinese Live Events Firm, Signaling Group’s Entertainment Reshuffle

Beyoncé has confirmed that a ‘Renaissance‘ concert tour documentary is on the way.The pop star shared a trailer for the documentary style concert film on her Instagram today (October 2), with text on screen at the end reading: “A film by Beyoncé.”Across vignettes of backstage and onstage ‘Renaissance’ tour performance footage, shots of her family, her travelling, members of the audience and more, Beyoncé is heard saying: “When I am performing I’m nothing but free.”She then explains that the goal for the world tour in support of her seventh album, 2022’s ‘Renaissance, “was to create a place where everyone is free…no one is judged”.

Naman Ramachandran Shah Rukh Khan has beaten Shah Rukh Khan at the box office. The Bollywood star’s “Jawan” has sped past his own “Pathaan” to occupy the box office top spot among the Indian films of 2023. “Jawan,” featuring Khan in a dual role as a father and son who set out to rectify corruption in Indian society, opened on Sept.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST N8, a recently-established finance, production and film sales company, has appointed Chen ; Tata’ Xinrui as its sales and distribution manager. Chen will serve under Tenten Wei, head of studios for EST N8 and will be based in Los Angeles. EST N8 is a partnership between EST Studios and Bangkok-based N8 Studios that was officially launched at Cannes this year and operates under the combined moniker.

Olympic hero Greg Rutherford has been revealed as the latest contestant to have signed up to take part in Dancing On Ice this year. Greg is the fifth star to be announced for the 2024 series of the ITV show and joins Hannah Spearritt, Amber Davies, Ricky Hatton MBE and Claire Sweeney.The exciting news was confirmed during Good Morning Britain on Monday, 2 October by hosts Ed Balls and Susanna Reid.

Taylor Swift was spotted at another of her rumoured boyfriend's American football game last night, 1 October.Taylor was in the luxury suite at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, watching Travis Kelce play in the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Jets.The 33 year old was seen on screens several times during the TV broadcast of the NFL game and at one point exclaimed: “Look at him!” as she watched on. The Shake it Off singer wasn’t the only famous face in attendance, though, as actress Blake Lively and her husband, Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds.

With seven stunning children, Paris and Tyson Fury have an undeniably incredible family. There's Venezuala, 14, Prince John James, 11, Prince Tyson II, seven, Valencia Amber, five, Prince Adonis Amaziah, four and Athena, two, not forgetting their newest arrival born just days ago on 18 September.The boxing champion, 35, and his wife of 15 years, 33, exclusively shared the happy news with OK! that they had welcomed a baby boy who arrived at 2.29am weighing 6lb 13oz along with a sweet family photograph to mark the occasion.

Katie Price’s fiancé Carl Woods has desperately offered his followers a £5k reward after his Range Rover was stolen from Felsted, Dunmow.The star, 34, who has had an on-off relationship with Katie Price, took to Instagram to ask his followers to help him track down the vehicle alongside an image of the black Range Rover. Carl captioned the image: “*STOLEN* MY RANGE ROVER HAS BEEN STOLEN LAST NIGHT FROM FELSTED DUNMOW. £5,000 REWARD FOR THE CAR BACK.

Paris Fury has said she'd love her newborn son to have a close relationship with his older cousin Bambi Fury, but making time to see brother-in-law Tommy Fury and his fiancée Molly-Mae Hague has proven difficult with the couple's busy schedules. Paris, 33, and her husband Tyson, 35, welcomed their seventh child, Prince Rico Paris Fury, on 18 September, and the new mum-of-seven has now introduced him to the world in an exclusive shoot with OK! and opened up about his arrival.

In just a few short weeks, Paris and Tyson Fury have become TV's new golden couple.Their Netflix TV show, At Home With The Furys, was only released back in mid-August, but it seems everyone's fallen in love with the latest reality stars after they opened up their Morecambe mansion – complete with six children – to the cameras.The docu-series may have given an insight into the family's hectic and chaotic life, but one thing is clear for all to see – the huge amount of love that exists between Loose Women star Paris, 33, and her boxing world champion husband Tyson, 35, who recently welcomed their seventh child, adorably called Prince Rico Paris Fury, known as Rico. The pair met at a mutual friend's wedding, when Tyson was 17 and an unknown boxer, and Paris was 15.They were introduced by Tyson's Aunt Theresa, who's known as the matchmaker in the family.

Paris and Tyson Fury welcomed their seventh baby to the world on Monday 18 September. The boxing champion, 35, and his wife of 15 years, 33, shared the happy news with OK! that they had welcomed a baby boy named Prince Rico Paris Fury, who arrived at 2.29am weighing 6lb 13oz. In exclusive first pictures of Paris posing together with their newest bundle of joy, the mum-of-seven looked totally smitten after their little one's arrival.

Paris Fury has defended her growing family following the birth of her seventh child with husband Tyson Fury in September, as she admitted she's seen "negative comments" about the couple having seven kids. The 33 year old welcomed baby son Prince Rico Paris Fury on 18 September with boxer Tyson, 35.The couple are also parents to Venezuela, 13, Prince John James, 10, Prince 'Tutty' Tyson, six, Valencia, five, Prince Adonis Amaziah Fury, four, and Athena, two.

Paris Fury has revealed that her husband Tyson Fury unfortunately missed the birth of their seventh child due to being "fully immersed" in training camp ahead of his upcoming boxing match. The 33 year old gave birth to her and Tyson's seventh child - a baby boy named Prince Rico Paris Fury - on 18 September, and she's now candidly opened up about her son's arrival. Heavyweight boxing champion Tyson, 35, had been by Paris' side at the hospital, but as things looked to be "going quite slowly" he decided to head back to training camp.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Disney has given a green light to a second season of Japanese drama -horror series “Gannibal.” Set in a fictional Japanese village, season one of Gannibal saw recently relocated police officer Agawa Daigo arrive in his new home a broken man. Wrestling with his guilt over an event that traumatized his daughter, things started off promisingly for the new arrival before a series of alarming events quickly led Agawa to the horrifying realization that something was deeply wrong with the villagers and the mysterious Goto family.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Ozu Yasujiro, the leading Japanese film director behind classics including “Tokyo Story” and “Late Spring,” has had his double birth and death anniversaries – Ozu died in 1963 on the day of his 60th birthday, a little more than a year after the release of his last film “An Autumn Afternoon” – celebrated throughout 2023 at places as varied as the Cannes Film Festival, Los Angeles’ Margaret Herrick Library and the Taiwan Film & Audiovisual Institute. But it falls to October’s Tokyo International Film Festival to put on this year’s biggest and most comprehensive reconstruction of Ozu’s surprisingly varied career. Working in conjunction with the National Film Archive of Japan, the festival will present an extensive retrospective that covers almost all the films that Ozu directed (TIFF/NFAJ Classics: Ozu Yasujiro Week) from Oct. 24-29. Ozu spent his entire career, from camera assistant in 1923 to renown director in 1962, as an employee of major Japanese studio Shochiku, with all the advantages and disadvantages such an arrangement brought. While Ozu is best known for his stripped-down dramas, often centered on family relationships, sometimes troubled or contentious, involving parents and young or grown-up children, many hinging on questions of marriage, generational misunderstandings or the loneliness of the elderly, the director’s register may not entirely have been of his own choosing. “The apparent consistency of the post-war films surely owes as much to this production situation as to Ozu’s aesthetic choices,” wrote critic Tony Rayns in a recent Sight & Sound portrait.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Paramount+ streaming service will launch in Japan in December as a free-of-charge addition to cable and internet provider J:COM’s platform and to pay-TV service Wowow. Paramount+ originals including “Tulsa King,” “Mayor of Kingstown” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” will be available at the launch of the service and for the first time in Japan. Japan will be the second country in East Asia where the service becomes available, following a launch in South Korea in June last year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Filming is now underway in Australia on “Desert King,” a neo-western drama series for Netflix that is positioned to be one of the streamer’s iconic prestige productions in the Asia-Pacific region. The story revolves around money and power in Australia’s harsh Outback regions with filming locations in the remote Northern Territory and near Adelaide, South Australia. When the world’s largest cattle station is left without a clear successor, generational clashes threaten to tear the Lawson family apart. Sensing this once great dynasty is in decline, the outback’s most powerful factions – rival cattle barons, desert gangsters, Indigenous elders and billionaire miners – move in for the kill,” says Netflix by way of a synopsis. While describing the six-part series as “one of the largest local screen productions filmed in both the [Northern] Territory and South Australia,” and “an extraordinary cast,” the streamer has not disclosed the identities of any cast. Directed by Greg McLean (“La Brea,” “Wolf Creek”), the show is a joint production between Easy Tiger and Ronde.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A+E Networks is continuing its investment in Korean entertainment content with “A Good Day to Be a Dog,” a fantasy romantic comedy that will upload from Oct. 11. Within Korea, the show will play on public broadcaster MBC and Lifetime Korea, releasing at the rate of one episode per week, every Wednesday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Netflix and SK Broadband, one of South Korea’s largest internet service providers, said that they were ending all their lawsuits and would instead create a strategic partnership to provide better entertainment experiences to Korean customers. The legal dispute began in 2020 over whether content providers that generate large amounts of traffic should pay “network usage fees” in addition to the bills paid by the household end users, or whether that would go against the principle of net neutrality and lead to higher costs for consumers. Netflix said that it could offer a technological solution to traffic volume that it had provided to ISPs in other countries and to rival ISPs in Korea. But SK Telecom and its subsidiary SK Broadband held out and appeared to gain support for their position in the Korean parliament. “This strategic partnership with Netflix originates from the philosophy of SK Telecom and SK Broadband, where customer value is prioritized, and comes as part of our efforts to provide customers with an enhanced media service environment,” said SK Telecom’s Choi Hwanseok, VP of corporate strategy. “The partnership with SK Telecom, a leader in Korea’s telecommunication and innovative technology industries, holds special significance as it enables Netflix to enhance entertainment experiences for a broader Korean audience,” said Tony Zameczkowski, Netflix VP of APAC partnerships. “By teaming up with Netflix, SK Telecom and SK Broadband aim to help customers enjoy Netflix shows and films on mobile devices and IPTV (B tv) with easier access and payment options.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Cobweb,” the Kim Jee-woon-directed satire that debuted at Cannes this year, has been cleared for theatrical release in its native Korea later this month. On Monday it saw off an injunction that sought to derail its hometown debut. The film is a tongue in cheek tribute to the Korean movies of the 1970s and plays partly as a film within a film, jumping from color to black and white as it does so. It stars Song Kang-ho (“Parasite,” “Broker”) as director Kim, who needs just two more days of reshoots to craft a new ending to his latest film (also called “Cobweb”) so that it will no longer be the trashy potboiler everyone thought he was making.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Byun hee-bong, a veteran South Korean actor who appeared in several films by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon Ho, has died age 81. Byun died on Monday after complications related to a return of the pancreatic cancer that had previously occurred and been treated, according to the semi-official Yonhap News agency. The precise circumstances of his demise were not disclosed. He was born in Jangseon, South Jeolla Province, and started work at an unspecified time in live theater before becoming a voice performer for state TV network MBC in 1966. His TV work in the 1980s and 1990s included series including: 1981’s ”The First Republic”; 1985’s “The Joseon Dynasty 500 Years: Seouljungmae”; and 1999’s “The Legendary Doctor Hur Jun.” His first reliably recorded feature film work was in Bong’s breakout 2000 film “Barking Dogs Never Bite.” Byun appeared in significant roles in three other films by Bong: the cultish “Memories of Murder,” in 2003; 2006 Cannes presentation and box office hit “The Host”; and “Okja,” the creature feature which marked Netflix’s film production debut in Korea and which also appeared Cannes. Byun picked up half a dozen best supporting actor nominations in Korea and regionally in Asia for his role as Hie-bong in “The Host,” converting two of those into wins, at the Asia Pacific Film Festival and Korea’s Blue Dragon Awards.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief ‘Expendables 4’ narrowly took top place at the mainland China box office on a quiet weekend preceding the National Day holiday season at the end of the month. “A Haunting in Venice” opened outside the top five. Data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway shows “Expendables 4” earning $10.9 million (RMB78.6 million) over its debut weekend.