After its blockbuster success in India, Aamir Khan starrer 3 Idiots is all set to get a Hollywood remake.

“We are in talks with 3 studios in Hollywood and one company in Italy for the remake of 3 Idiots,” Vinod Chopra told PTI on the sidelines of the ongoing International film festival of India (IFFI).
 

And that’s not it. The film, which released in India in December 2009, is all set to explore other markets. It is releasing in Mainland China with a whopping 900 prints next week.

“Its a first for any Hindi film to release with so many prints in China. It is also being adapted into a stage musical in Taiwan. The film has already made 2-3 million dollars in Hong Kong,” said Chopra.

The film is also getting a Chinese remake.
“The director of Kung Fu Hustle Stephen Chow is also remaking it in Chinese. My films are made with universal values so they connect with audience all over the world. I am hoping my next Ferrari Ki Sawari also tastes the same success.”

Ferrari… starring Sharman Joshi is a film about a father-son relationship and will release in April next year.

via hindustantimes

Lust leads the way but love gets lost in “You Are the Apple of My Eye,” a bawdy, sentimental but still enjoyably Taiwanese coming-of-ager. Directed by prolific author Giddens, adapting his own autobiographical novel, this raunchy item is perfectly pitched at Chinese youth markets, especially with its catchy soundtrack (Sony Music’s Taiwan branch co-produced with local outfit Star Ritz). Biz has been boffo in Taiwan ($12.7 million) and Hong Kong ($1.4 million), and while the film’s depiction of Taiwanese patriotism and lewd humor may offend censors in various territories, a rich international ancillary career awaits. 

With a popular blog and more than 50 novels to his credit, Taiwanese personality Giddens (real name Ko Ching-teng) is almost a presold commodity domestically, spelling widespread interest in this, his feature-film debut (he helmed one segment of the portmanteau film “L-O-V-E”). Told in flashback, the story opens with Giddens’ alter ego, Ching-teng (Ko Chen-tung), being told to hurry because there’s a bride waiting for him. With a bite of an apple and a devilish grin, Ching-teng snaps into a verbose voiceover that accompanies the pic throughout.

Flashing back to 1995, Ching-teng introduces his coterie of buddies from his South Taiwan high school, where sex, not study, is their chief preoccupation. Given that one character is named Boner (Yen Sheng-yu), and Ching-teng has a penchant for looking at Japanese porn and walking around the house naked, the film boasts a sexual frankness that could get it nicknamed “Taiwanese Pie.”

Caught participating in a masturbation contest at the back of a classroom, Ching-teng is relocated to a seat in front of Shen Chia-yi (Michelle Chen), the overachieving, puritanical coed he and all his friends are in love with. Dismayed by Ching-teng’s academic apathy, Chia-yi is nevertheless won over by his display of chivalry, which rescues her from punishment on one occasion.

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via Variety

All directors will be in attendance for a Q&A session following the screening of the films moderated by film reviewer, Raymond Tan.

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The project will be directorial debut for well-known choreographer Bosco and coproduced by UTV Motion Pictures along with “Rockstar” director Imtiaz Ali.

Leading banner UTV Motion Pictures announced that it will produce the official Hindi remake of 2009 Korean blockbuster My Girlfriend Is An Agent. The as-yet-untitled project will be the debut directorial venture by Bosco, one half of well-known Bollywood choreographer duo Bosco-Caeser. Imtiaz Ali – currently riding high with the success of his latest film Rockstar – will serve as the film’s creative producer while his wife Preety will be co-producer via their newly setup PI Films banner.

Details about the film’s cast are still to be announced. 

My Girlfriend Is An Agent set new box office records in South Korea opening at number one and staying in the top 10 for nine consecutive weeks. Directed by Shin Tae-Ra and starring Kim Ha-Neul and Kang Ji-hwan, the film tells an endearing story of two spies, once in love but now at each other’s throats, on a mission to stop a Russian crime group from stealing an advanced chemical weapon.

“From the day our team at UTV saw My Girlfriend Is An Agent, we knew it was a film we just had to remake in Hindi. The characters of the two main leads are so endearing and the situations they find themselves in so hilarious, that it’s the perfect recipe for an action rom-com!” said UTV Motion Pictures CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur.

“It is very exciting. It seems like full on fun – both the film and the making. A crazy, high energy no holds barred roller coaster with this highly huggable hero and highly hyper heroine,” added Ali.

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via Hollywood Reporter

Southeast Asian filmmakers celebrated the region’s cinematic achievements while lamenting the difficulty of competing with Hollywood’s pulling power at a film festival on the sidelines of the Bali Asean Summit on Wednesday.

Participants said there were two main problems holding back the region’s national film industries: a lack of output and the relatively small local audiences. 
“Five years ago we were producing hundreds of films, but we’re down to dozens now,” said Jose Miguel De La Rosa, a filmmaker from the Philippines.

Dang Nath Min, a cinematographer from Vietnam, said that Hollywood’s superior financial clout and marketing skills meant that consumers, and in particular younger moviegoers, tended to prefer the US product over their own nation’s films.

The two-day Asean Film Festival opened on Wednesday with a screening of a Burmese film, “Zaw-Ka Ka Nay Thi,” about a traditional medicine-maker with a talent for dance. The film earned Mee Pwar the Best Director award at the Myanmar Academy Awards.

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via Jakarta Globe