Hello! My
apologies for how late this post is compared to my earlier newsreel post. I’ve been really busy since returning from
Jacky’s concert in mid-February so I’m still trying to play catch-up on some
stuff. Luckily, with the Chinese New
Year holiday, there wasn’t a whole lot of major entertainment news the past two
weeks (at least not stuff that I care about) so that’s good.
Below is this week’s newsreel post. Note that it’s shorter than usual because I’m
still catching up, plus most of what I wanted to relay about HKTV and the television
industry I already posted up detailed articles on last week so make sure you
check those out as well.
Television
industry news
FOX ASIA
-
Someone asked me earlier if I knew when Fox Asia’s
2 HK series Trading Floor and Stain’d will air. At the time, I said I don’t know because I
truly didn’t know…but last week, I read an article where one of the executives
from Fox said that both series are scheduled to air in “Spring 2018”. Of course, that’s still a big vague, but at
least it helps us narrow down the time period – since spring officially starts
in March and lasts through May, then it’s pretty safe to say that both series
will air anytime within the next 3 months, so watch for the official
announcement (which I anticipate will come any minute now).
-
Honestly, I can’t wait, as I’ve been highly
anticipating both series. I even
downloaded Fox’s app on my iPad already so I can be prepared once they air (and
yes, I already combed through it when I downloaded it to see if there was any
info about the 2 series, but so far nothing – I didn’t check last week though
so unless they updated recently….).
ATV
-
So far, the only “big” news from ATV is that
they are already working on the much-touted television remake of “A Better
Tomorrow”. ATV’s CEO Ng Yu attended an
event recently and revealed that they are throwing millions of dollars into the
production, though cast has still not been confirmed yet. I personally still think that the leads are
going to be Mainland artists, as Ng Yu pretty much “hinted” at such when he
said that they “will be throwing millions of dollars into the production
because they want to ensure quality and also well-qualified Mainland actors are
expensive” (yes, he actually did mention Mainland actors and production costs
in the same sentence, though he didn’t say outright that he was going to cast
Mainland artists).
-
Ng Yu also implied that he originally was thinking
about having HK singer/actor William Chan star in the series. When reporters asked him about the cast for
ABT remake, Ng Yu said that they are still working on it, but the biggest
problem is with artists’ schedules – for example, in the past, whenever he
would approach William Chan to participate in something, he would readily oblige,
however nowadays when he approaches him, he is not able to accommodate due to
his busy schedule filming in Mainland (remember that Ng Yu was head of EEG
before he got pulled out of retirement to head up ATV comeback venture and
William was EEG artist, so of course he could get him to do anything he wanted).
-
As I’ve said before, I’m not keen on this whole
remake thing, especially with such an iconic classic as ABT, so most likely I
won’t watch anyway, no matter who they end up casting. Personally, I’m just interested in seeing how
ATV fares this time around and whether they will succeed in “re-inventing”
themselves. So far, it doesn’t look
promising at all (read my previous posts on ATV and you’ll probably understand
why) but it’s still early so we’ll see….
OCTB
-
I know everyone is dying to find out latest on
OCTB. The latest “news” on the OCTB
front – this comes from a post that OCTB
production team put up on their social media pages back on 2/22: they will
officially start filming Season 2 in Spring 2018 (everyone seems to love
spring, lol), which pretty much means in the next couple weeks, with
anticipated airing date of Winter 2018 (so December it looks like). This is great news actually, as I originally
thought we won’t get to watch season 2 until 2019, but looks like they are
pushing for sooner – basically end of the year 2018.
-
The same social media post also indicated that
there will be 2 major OCTB-related events coming up soon so watch for those
announcements! [Sidenote: I have a feeling I might now know what those “events”
are but I will hold off since I could be completely wrong for one and two, it
sounds like the announcement will come really soon so no point in speculating].
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The following is actually “old” news from end of
February (I read about it at the time but didn’t have time to write up this post
on it so figured I’d mention it here):
o
HMV setup a booth at the annual CNY fair in HK a
few weeks ago selling all sorts of OCTB paraphernalia – pillows, mugs, playing
cards, etc., all with OCTB cast and/or scenes and/or logo on them. Justin
Cheung (aka Jiu Jik) and Benji Chiang (aka Sai Wah) were responsible for
manning the booth each day and helping to sell stuff (Justin especially since a
lot of the stuff had his Jiu Jik character’s face on them, lol).
o
Benji was interviewed and said that they actually
have plans to release more OCTB merchandise in the coming months for fans to purchase,
since it will be awhile before season 2 airs and they wanted to keep the
momentum going. He said that they are
super excited about OCTB character action figures that are being made right now
and also video games based on the series that are in the works as well. Looks like they are definitely “going all out”
in terms of promo for the series, which they can afford to do now that they’ve
got Netflix backing them financially!
o
Speaking of Netflix…Justin was interviewed as
well and was asked about season 2 and 3 filming. He wouldn’t reveal too much of course but he did
say that seasons 2 and 3 both got the green light to film. Both seasons will also air on Netflix, which has
become an investor in the series and will be contributing financially to the
project (this of course means that future seasons could incorporate Hollywood
stars). Also, Justin’s character will
continue to be significant in season 2 and they are currently planning out how
his character will evolve…
