Taiwan’s Central Motion Pictures Corporation has struck a production pact with CJ ENM Hong Kong, an overseas offshoot of the Korean CJ ENM media group. The deal represents a further expansion of CJ ENM’s Mandarin language production efforts outside of mainland China.
The companies said Thursday that they intend to produce “an island-based scripted series in Kinmen” in 2023. They also described the unnamed project as “top global creator leaders joining forces to remake a popular CJ ENM IP in Taiwan,” with the intention of selling to a global audience.
The source material was not named. Nor was any broadcast or streaming platform. Cast and director are to be announced in the first quarter of next year.
The project also involves Deepwaters Digital Support at development stage and finance from the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), a Taiwan government-related promotional body.
Kinmen, also called Quemoy, is a cluster of small islands that lie less than ten miles off the mainland Chinese coast at Xiamen, but which is administered by Taiwan. Though Taiwan is democratic and has its own currency and judicial system, its sovereignty is claimed by mainland China, which says that it will reunite with the territory by force if necessary.
China’s recent policies have increased the gap between the film and TV industries of the mainland and those in the rest of the world. They have had the effect of making Taiwan a growing center of Chinese-language production for international streaming platforms which have multinational audience ambitions.
“We are very encouraged by the warm reception towards our first two Taiwan-collaborated Mandarin-scripted original series ‘Mum, Don’t Do That’ and ‘The Amazing Grace of Σ,’which premiered this year. Hence, we are delighted to continue our venture into Mandarin-language original content with another great collaboration in Taiwan in 2023,” said Michael Jung, MD of CJ ENM Hong Kong.
“Drama series produced by Taiwan have flourished greatly in recent years, with the quality of content and buzz-worthiness continuing to achieve new heights. The biggest advantage of Taiwanese film and television works lies in their rich creativity and freedom in expression, as well as relatively reasonable production costs,” the company added in a statement.
“Central Motion Pictures Corporation’s film studio in Wai Shuangxi and the Central Taiwan Film Studios in Wufeng have been upgraded to production specifications required by international streaming platforms and large-scale film productions,” said Paul Yang, GM of Deepwaters. “This collaboration project with CJ ENM Hong Kong is only the first step and we look forward to more in-depth cooperation between the two parties in the future.”
“This collaboration project with CJ ENM Hong Kong is only the first step and we look forward to more in-depth cooperation between the two parties in the future. In addition to continuing to co-produce creative films and series, we also hope that through the international influence of CJ ENM (Hong Kong), we can showcase Taiwan’s first-class international film and television co-production capabilities and attract large-scale multinational film and television projects from Thailand and South Korea to work with Central Motion Pictures Corporation’s film studio for filming as well as pre-and post-production works.”
