The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Saban invests US$30m in Asian pay-TV business with Lionsgate Posted: 22 Dec 2011 07:35 AM PST LOS ANGELES, Dec 22 — Saban Capital Group and Lionsgate are partnering with Celestial Pictures Limited to launch a new pay-television channel for the burgeoning Asian market, the companies announced yesterday. The new entity will be called Celestial Tiger Entertainment (CTE), and will operate as an independent Asian media company, expanding into production and multi-platform distribution in the coming months. Saban would be the largest shareholder, having invested US$30 million (RM94.9 million) in the joint venture, Adam Chesnoff, president and chief operating officer of Saban Capital Group, told TheWrap. Lionsgate and Celestial will provide much of the content. "What we're creating is a very unique, high-growth integrated media company in Asia," Chesnoff told TheWrap in an interview from Hong Kong. "We have the content, the distribution and the management." The venture extends the expansion of Saban and Lionsgate into the region. In 2008, the two companies paired up to launch Tiger Gate Entertainment, a joint venture focused on creating pay-TV programming in Asia. Tiger Gate's two channels are being folded into this venture. In June this year, Saban acquired the Chinese children's online entertainment company Taomee. Two months ago, the private equity firm snapped up a 7.5 per cent stake in the Indonesian media company MNC International. "Celestial Tiger Entertainment blends the complementary strengths and skill sets of three companies well positioned to capitalise on opportunities in the Asian filmed entertainment and pay-TV marketplace and allows us to enrich our pipeline of content and extend our distribution footprint throughout the region," Lionsgate co-chairman and CEO Jon Feltheimer said in a statement. Celestial Tiger will have its headquarters in Hong Kong and the programming will be available in a number of rapidly expanding markets including Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. Indeed, the fastest growing pay-TV sector in the world was in Asia, Chesnoff told TheWrap. The pay-television lineup will draw heavily on Celestial Pictures' flagship channels — Celestial Movies, Celestial Classic Movies, and Celestial Movies On Demand. It will also offer three pay-TV channels from Tiger Gate Entertainment — KIX, an action entertainment channel; Thrill, a horror and suspense movie channel; and KIX HD, which carries high-definition programming. The new company plans to expand its suite of programming. To that end, the company will also branch into distributing movies and television through local distributors. Celestial Tiger will include staff from both Celestial Movies Channels and Tiger Gate. — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Zhang, Bale blossom together on ‘Flowers of War’ Posted: 22 Dec 2011 06:39 AM PST LOS ANGELES, Dec 22 — In 100 years of Chinese film, "The Flowers of War" is the first major title to feature a Western movie star. It earned a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign language film, and is China's entry for the Oscars.  Christian Bale and Zhang Yimou at the premiere of "The Flowers of War" in Beijing, December 11, 2011. — Reuters file pic In the film, which has a limited US release this week before opening nationwide in 2012, Bale's character must save a group of schoolgirls from the clutches of the Japanese. At the same time, he falls in love with a Chinese courtesan. Bale and Chinese director Zhang Yimou, who communicated through an interpreter while making the film, talked with Reuters about overcoming cultural barriers and revisiting an infamous episode of China's past. (The interview took place before Bale's recent run-in with Chinese officials.) Q: This is your first time working with a Western film star. Did the collaboration meet or defy your expectations? Zhang: "First, I'm amazed at how low key and humble Christian is. The stereotype that Chinese have of Hollywood actors is they probably have an entourage and assistants. So that's definitely changed how I viewed Hollywood actors. And also Christian didn't want to stay in a five-star hotel either. He lived right above me, lived with everybody else, with the crew members. And another thing is Christian gave up his weekends to work with us because we work seven days a week." Bale: "But this seven-day-week schedule became something I quite enjoyed cause I liked the momentum. Yimou is top dog in his profession, and he genuinely seemed to have a great deal of humour and laughter on the set. I didn't always know what the laughter was about but I would laugh with them. I hope they're not all laughing at me! I felt surrounded by good friends and even if I didn't understand nuances of what was being discussed, I got the essence in the presence of people." Q: Do you find that your shared experience in filmmaking was enough to communicate despite the language barrier? Bale: "There would be moments where Yimou would come to me and we would work it out between the two of us. And sometimes with a scene it's very small adjustments that were being asked for and I could understand from body language. And I always was convinced Yimou spoke a little bit of English, more than he ever let on to. So we'd experiment and see how it works out and sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't." Q: How are Western actors different from Chinese? Zhang: "Each line Christian offered three or four different ways, which is very unusual because Chinese actors normally cannot pull that off. Screening the film for a Western audience I realised that the first one-third of the movie, audiences would laugh at Christian's lines. That actually surprised me because when I wrote the script in Chinese, I didn't think that was humorous, but clearly Christian added other layers to it." Q: I understand Zhang asked you to stand before the cast and give them acting tips but it proved awkward. Bale: "I always think it's bad to try to alter anybody else's experience. Apart from that, it's not my job. That's the director's job. And I love very much working with actors who either have no experience or very little experience. I like to try to avoid getting any technique into my acting because I feel like the more known an actor gets, you really have to be exceptional to maintain that feeling of freshness and vitality and enthusiasm instead of falling back on your usual tricks." Q: Steven Spielberg recommended you for the part after working with you years ago on "Empire of the Sun" when you were a child. Did working with kids on this movie take you back? Bale: "Some of the girls would say to me, 'I would never want to act ever again in my life, this is it'. And I would say to them, 'That's what I said. That's exactly what I said when I was your age'. The thing that I liked so much was the freshness that they brought in terms of this is something new but there's no consideration of this being anything that they would continue with." Q: The movie is set around an atrocity by the Japanese that rivals in brutality what the Nazis did in Europe. Why do you think the world hasn't held the Japanese accountable? Zhang: "Maybe the international community doesn't know much about Nanjing because China, at that time, was really far behind, and they didn't have enough voice or power to actually speak out for themselves. For me, rather than arouse sad feelings, the goal of the movie is to make people see the good side of humanity and bring peaceful feelings to an audience." — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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