Hollywood to Asia: Shall We Dance?

The following remakes are already done deals or well on their way:

Infernal Affairs: Martin Scorsese directs, Brad Pitt probably stars.

My Wife is a Gangster: With Queen Latifah.

Shall We Dance?: Wrapped and set for an August release, starring Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere.

Hi, Dharma!: MGM's bought the remake rights for $300K and five percent of the box office.

Tell Me Something: Fox's got the rights.

My Sassy Girl: Rights went to first to DreamWorks for $750K and four percent; now Madonna's company, Maverick, holds them.

Phone: DreamWorks again.

A lot of this is culled from Roger Clarke's excellent piece in today's Independent, "Why Hollywood is brimful of Asia." Clarke proposes a series of answers. For one thing, it's a trend US producers, ever wary of original ideas in the first place, feel they have to be in on following the success of The Ring, the remake, of course, of Ringu. Second, sales of these rights are actually sustaining some Asian production companies, particularly in Korea, in what might otherwise be dire times. Most of all:

But there's another good reason why Hollywood has just gone crazy for the East. It's called China. Warner has recently done a deal to open multiplexes all over the People's Republic, and Rupert Murdoch has for many years now made little secret of his desire to get a piece of the action there.... Within 20 years, huge parts of Hollywood will be committed to making films specifically for the Chinese market, and some Hollywood studios are already experimenting with making actual Korean films with no obvious cross-over potential. It seems entirely possible that a Chinese media company will eventually buy a studio such as Universal Pictures, or even Disney.

Which throws yet another angle on Comcast's bid, doesn't it.

Also in the Independent today:

Silence could fall today on the sets on some of the highest profile movies to be made in Britain in recent years. Despite the fact that 2003 was the British film industry's best ever year a financial crisis threatens to pull the plug on projects starring Jude Law, John Malkovich and Johnny Depp.

Louise Jury explains.

And: Nick Hasted meets the Polish brothers and Fiona Morrow interviews Benicio Del Toro.

Posted by dwhudson at February 20, 2004 8:30 AM