TATA TAKES BITE OF APPLE IN INDIA
Indian channels aggregator, Tata Play Binge, is soon to incorporate Apple TV+, a first-of-its-kind collaboration for Apple TV+ in India. The move means that series such as“Ted Lasso,” “Shrinking,” “Silo,” “Hijack,” “Foundation,” “Tehran,” “Servant,” “Platonic,” “Severance,” “The Morning Show,” “Bad Sisters,” “Slow Horses” and “Prehistoric Planet,” and Apple Original Films including“CODA”and“The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,”“Ghosted,” and the recently premiered“The Beanie Bubble” will be available on the platform. The launch is being heralded in an ad campaign fronted by Bollywood superstars Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif.
Apple Original films set to make their debut on Apple TV+ soon includeMartin Scorsese‘s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone; spy thriller“Argylle,” with Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose and Samuel L. Jackson; Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,”starring Joaquin Phoenix; and Joseph Kosinski’s untitled Formula One racing feature starring Brad Pitt.
DISNEY PARKS
Disneyland Paris has revealed its flagship hotel, the Disneyland Hotel, is set to reopen on Jan. 25, 2024. The property, which sits at the entrance to the Disneyland park in Paris, France, closed in 2021 ago to begin renovations. The company has now given fans a glimpse at what they’ve been working on over the last three years including rooms fit for a princess. There is a “Frozen”-themed presidential suite offering views of the castle as well as rooms inspired by “Beauty and the Beast” (both the animated and live-action versions), “Sleeping Beauty” and “Tangled.” The re-opened hotel will also boast a new lobby, pool, spa, kids club, themed restaurants and lounges.
ConTENT CROWN
Busan’s Asia Contents Awards, now restyled as the ACA & G.OTT Awards, has unveiled nominees in 17 categories for the 2023 edition – a procession that is up from 12 last year. They include ten competitive categories and seven non-competitive selections, such as a lifetime achievement award and rising star of the year.
The most prestigious ‘Best Creative” award comprises five nominees, three Korean and one each from China and the U.S. The Korean trio are The Glory, Little Women and “Moving.” Chinese streamer Tencent’s family mystery “The Long Season” and spy thriller series “Special Ops: Lioness,” starring Zoe Saldana and Laysla De Oliveira.
Netflix counts 14 nominations in its own name (as well as being the streaming platform for others such as “Little Women” and “Delete”) Disney 10, Tencent six, Wavve three, Coupang Play and Tving one each.
Across the spectrum of nominees are shows including “Sanctuary,” “Let’s Feast Vietnam,” “SNL Korea,” “Cattleya Killer,” “Taiwan Crime Stories” and Tencent’s Chinese-language “Three Body.”
FORMAT FACTORY
Nippon TV, the Japanese originator of “Shark Tank” and other unscripted formats, will launch four new properties at next month’s MIPCOM rights market in France. One, a scripted format, “The Greatest Teacher” sees a schoolteacher go back in time to discover which of her students pushed her off a roof.
The company is also unveiling two unscripted formats: “Suspects on the Set,” a mix of a scripted crime drama and an unscripted investigation battle, and “5 Friends, 5 Favours!,” a studio-based gameshow which features friends who battle it out to win for their celebrity friends.
It is also giving an international launch to anime title “The Apothecary Diaries,” which is an adaptation of a well-known period mystery series that has sold over 24 million copies.
“Starting last year, Nippon TV has strengthened its production and distribution capabilities. We are actively pursuing partnerships to produce original programs and aiming for series adaptation in international markets, whether scripted or unscripted,” said Nishiyama Mikiko, executive VP of global business at Nippon TV. “To achieve these goals, those programs will first be produced and broadcast in Japan as a pilot version for international markets.”
BENEATH CONTENT
New Zealand-based genre film specialist Black Mandala has picked up world sales rights to action horror thriller “What Lurks Beneath.” The film, directed by Jamie Bailey (“This Was America”) centers on the crew of a navy submarine with nuclear conflict and World War III on the horizon. When a naked woman stowaway appears in one of their torpedo tubes, the captain fears she may be a Russian infiltrator. It turns out she is something far more dangerous. The cast includes Simon Phillips (“Fubar,” “The Witcher”) Ryan Giesen (“Daughter of The Sun”), Michael Swatton (“Blood and Snow”), Nick Biskupek (“Butchers Book Two: Raghorn”) and newcomer Dela Reilley.
Production was by Mem Ferda of FilmCore and executive production by Ken Bressers of Dystopian Films in association with Bailey’s Into frame Films. “Beneath” had its world premiere last month at the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival in New York state.
QUIZ SHOW
“RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K.” judge and “Interior Design Masters Presenter” Alan Carr hosts BBC quiz show “Picture Slam.” In each round, the three teams consisting of two contestants will be presented with a board full of pictures, each picture from a different subject, they need to correctly identify them against the clock. If they clear a full board with correct answers for a ‘Picture Slam’ they’ll receive a cash bonus. The finalist team will take home the £10,000 ($12,500) prize if they can correctly name all the pictures.
Teacher Goes MENA
British-Palestinian director Farah Nabulsi’s drama “The Teacher,” which recently premiered in Toronto, has been officially acquired by Dubai-based Front Row Filmed Entertainment for distribution across the Middle East and North Africa.
The deal marks the second collaboration between Nabulsi and Front Row, which sold her previous short film“The Present”to Netflix before it went on to score a BAFTA award and an Oscar nomination.
The Teacher” follows Palestinian schoolteacher basem (Bakri), who acts as a father figure to two of his students, Yacoub and Adam (Muhammad Abed Elrahman), amidst turmoil in the West Bank. Upon meeting British volunteer worker Lisa (Poots), basem struggles to reconcile his life-threatening commitment to political resistance and his emotional support for Yacoub and Adam with the chance of a new romantic relationship.
