Patrick: Last News

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Dwayne Johnson-starring Christmas-themed comedy adventure film “Red One” is set for a theatrical release in mainland China. The film is directed by Jake Kasdan and sees Santa Claus (code name: Red One) kidnapped. To save Christmas, the North Pole’s head of security (Johnson) must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter (Chris Evans) in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. Discovery has confirmed that its streaming service Max will launch in seven territories in Southeast Asia next month. From Nov.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Established only six months ago, Australian premium TV production outfit Lantern Pictures has struck a first-look content supply deal with global distributor Fremantle. Lantern Pictures was established by multi-award winning writer and showrunner Sarah Lambert – the name behind critically acclaimed and popular series “Lambs of God,” “Love Child” and Amazon’s “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” – director Jane Manning and TV executive Andrew Lambert. At launch, the company said that its mission is to be Australia’s first showrunner-centric, female-focused production company. “We’re launching a creative partnership between the two companies, one that we’re very excited about, which gives us access to the larger of corporate entity of Fremantle, it’s an alliance of similarly minded creatives and its distribution network,” Andrew Lambert told Variety. “Fremantle and Lantern are creatively aligned so this partnership feels natural and right.

An MP has launched a petition to slash the price of a Cadbury Freddo. Nineties kids have fond memories of enjoying the little chocolate treat which cost 10p.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” took second place at the mainland China box office over the latest weekend, leading off a season of re-releases that will encompass the full “Harry Potter” franchise. The weekend’s top-ranked film was “The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death” which took RMB77.4 million ($10.9 million) in its second full weekend in Chinese theaters, according to data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway. Since releasing on Sept. 30, in time to capture the full National Day holiday period, the Chen Kaige-directed film has earned $139 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “One Piece,” the long running and iconic Japanese animation series, is to take a six-month hiatus, effective immediately. Toei Animation, the company behind the show, said that the series will take a break after Sunday’s Episode 1122 and return in April 2025 with fresh episodes from the “Egghead Arc.” No explanation for the abrupt break was offered in a written press statement, but at an online event, it was explained that the creators need to “recharge” themselves. Having run for 25 years since its Japanese TV debut in 1999, the “One Piece” animated series is produced by Toei Animation and airs weekly.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief GrX Studio has set its sights on an international expansion that matches its leading position within Taiwan’s film and TV production industry. At a fast-paced event on Monday held on the margins of the Busan International Film Festival, the company detailed plans to invest some $45 million over five years into 15 Mandarin-language series and five horror films through a new fund. The launch event also included a roster of current shows from the group, which was formerly known as Greener Grass Productions. It was previously responsible for “Copycat Killer,” a series which has performed strongly for streaming giant Netflix. Taiwan actor Ning Chang and Vietnam actor Lien Binh Phat from “The Outlaw Doctor,” a crime series which is now in post-production and which GrX co-produced with Public Television Service Foundation (PTS) and Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), and Korean celebrity Jinyoung and Taiwan actress Moon Lee from “The Photo from 1977.” The title is a romance film facilitated by the Hakka Affairs Council, with script development supported by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) and is part-funded by the Hakka Public Communication Foundation. Other titles confirmed at the event included: a horror film “Trapped in Yellow”; a boys’ love (BL) feature film “Wild With You,” produced by Golden Bell Awards-winning producer Phoebe Ma; and the thriller series “The Ones I Killed and the Ones Who Killed Me,” that is currently in development and is adapted from the popular Japanese novel by Akira Higashiyama. An historical series set in Taiwan and Japan, titled “KOHAKU: The Traitor of the Night,” is to be directed by Lien Yi-chi and Kentaro Hagiwara.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Box office in China over the country’s crucial National Day holiday season fell by 23% according to Maoyan, a leading movie ticketing platform. Gross nationwide revenues ran at approximately RMB300 million ($42.5 million) per day from Tuesday last week to Monday, adding up to RMB2.10 billion ($297 million), Maoyan Research Institute said. Some 52 million tickets were sold in the seven-day period.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Serving a rising demand for Indonesian horror, U.S.-Thai film sales company EST N8 has picked up rights to “Perewangan,” a feature that launches in its home market theaters later this month. In “Perewangan,” characters Maya and Wulan face supernatural terror as their once-thriving family business crumbles, leading them to confront a horrifying figure behind their misfortunes. The film is written and directed by filmmaker Awi Suryadi, known for his work on “KKN Di Desa Penari,” the highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time, and the “Danur” franchise.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Thailand’s skill with ghostly drama series gets another showing in “The Legend of Nang Nak,” which releases widely across Asia next week. Directed by Taweewat Wantha and scripted by Sorarat Jirabovornwisut, the pair behind “Death Whisperer 1 and 2,” the 30-part series portrays a ghostly love story that defies the barriers between life and death. The series hails from production firm Minds@Work and Thai terrestrial broadcast group BEC World. International sales are handled by I.E.

An aesthetician has revealed how men are increasingly turning to salmon-derived serums to "slow down the ageing process" – by opting for injectable treatments containing FISH SPERM.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Chen Kaige’s war epic “The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death” was the dominant force at the mainland China box office over the weekend. But the end of the National Day holiday week maintained the trend of relative weakness. “The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death” scored RMB324 million ($45.6 million according to data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway, which also said that the film 26% of screening sessions in the Friday to Sunday period. The weekend represented the latter half of a holiday week that officially started on Tuesday (Oct.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean-made crime-comedy-thriller “I, The Executioner,” a sequel to 2015 hit ‘Veteran,” continued its spree at the top of the South Korea weekend box office. It earned $1.68 million in its fourth full weekend session, ahead of top-ranked new release “Joker: Folie a Deux.” “I, The Executioner” saw its market share slip to 29%, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). The latest weekend increment gives the film a $49.97 million running total since releasing on Sept.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Jia Zhangke, China’s quintessential indie director, says that the COVID-era lockdowns gave him a chance to rethink and review the miles of footage that he has shot over more than 20 years of filmmaking. The result was “Caught by the Tides,” which premiered at Cannes and plays again this week at the Busan International Film Festival. In “Tides,” Jia mixes up older footage with specially-created new material and has his wife and muse, Zhao Tao wander through twenty years of Chinese history. They are both documenting and dramatizing recent Chinese societal and economic development – from the time when China was granted admission to the World Trade Organization, through the time when it won the right to hold the (2008) summer Olympic Games through to a near present. Jia’s approach is like that of a pulp fiction writer.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two Vietnamese-flavored films in prominent festival slots this year have put the spotlight on the country’s emerging indie cinema scene. A discussion in Busan on Saturday highlighted the sector’s behind-the-scenes struggles, which center on ever-changing financing options, limited distribution and censorship. “Now is the best time to be a Southeast Asia filmmaker. We can now produce without Europe. That was not possible ten years ago,” said Bianca Balbuena, the Philippines-based lead producer on “Viet and Nam” the Truong Minh Quy-directed gay drama that debuted in Cannes this year. “More people are getting opportunities to make films.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The International Film Festival Rotterdam has appointed Marten Rabarts to the position of head of IFFR Pro, its market strand, effective immediately. Recently, Rabarts served as festival director at the New Zealand International Film Festival. His extensive global career also has significant legacy in the Netherlands, both as head of EYE International (now SeeNL) – where he was responsible for the promotion of Dutch film and film culture worldwide for four years and as artistic director of the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam for 12 years.

EXCLUSIVE: Denise Richards (The World Is Not Enough) and Guy Nardulli (Tulsa King) have signed-on to join Patrick Muldoon in indie action-thriller Dirty Hands.

Michaela Zee “The Villains of Valley View” has been canceled after two seasons at Disney Channel, according to series co-creator and executive producer Chris Peterson. “All good things must come to an end… and after two incredible seasons such is the case with ‘The Villains of Valley View,'” Peterson wrote in a statement posted on X Wednesday night.

Disney Channel has officially canceled The Villains of Valley View ten months after the live-action comedy’ second season ended its run on the network. Chris Peterson, who co-created and executive produced the series with Bryan Moore, shared the news on X.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Programmers at the Busan International Film Festival have given their opening gala to an historical action thriller ‘Uprising” with an all-star Korean cast that hails not from a traditional Korean studio, but from Netflix the global streaming platform that has both disrupted and elevated the South Korean content industry. Selectors have brushed aside criticism that the choice of a film that will skip a theatrical release and be available online within a couple of weeks, is a troubling precedent. Instead, they have pointed out that the festival has long programmed TV series and also operates a content awards ceremony that is open to films, TV series and made-for-online content.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Asian sales and production firm Distribution Workshop is using the Busan International Film Festival’s market to re-launch ambitious “Sons of the Neon Night,” a film it first became attached to in 2015. Only this time the Juno Mak-directed project is now in post-production, has a stellar cast and has expanded to become the highest-budget movie ever hatched in Hong Kong. “Sons of the Neon Night” is pitched as a high-octane yet highly-stylized, police-crime-action-thriller set in a deconstructed and reimagined Hong Kong.