CANNES, France, Oct 16 (Bernama) -- WebTVAsia, a leading Asian media entertainment group with production studios and digital networks across Asia, has announced the signing of an international co-production agreement with Ciwen Media Group (“Ciwen”) in conjunction with the MIPCOM world content market here today.

Ciwen, a public-listed China studio giant that produced over 20,000 hours of highest rated drama content, and WebTVAsia have agreed to co-develop and co-produce “Gangsters of Shanghai” (“Gangsters”), an original story based on a novel by Gerry O’Sullivan, with an undisclosed budget in the tens of millions US dollars.

WebTVAsia and its co-producer Ideate Media (“Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”) had secured the book exploitation rights and invested in script development for a feature film and TV series. Renowned Hollywood script writers Trey Callaway (“CSI”, “Rush Hour”) and Kerry Williamson (“What Happened To Monday?”, “Sacred Games” - both Netflix Originals ) have also come onboard the project.

Fred Chong, group CEO of WebTVAsia said: “We want to bring to life the intriguing socio-political landscape of 1920’s Shanghai - vibrant, dangerous and seductive. Featuring struggles between the icons of colonial law enforcement and the seedy underworld of local gangs, everyone is a gangster, even the cops.”

Ma Zhongjun, founder and chairman of Ciwen who signed the agreement here today, said: “Gangsters is one the most well-known Chinese legends, therefore we are very excited to produce a world class edition with global stars to tell this story to an international audience.”

Additionally, WebTVAsia and Ciwen have disclosed a slate of 6 original IPs to be jointly developed for TV and digital OTT broadcast exploitation in various international markets. The working titles of the projects are: Gangsters of Shanghai, The Crippled World, Third Eye, The Monsters, Remolding, Princess Agents, Chronicles of Tomb Raiders, Chung Kue, Dancing in the Storm, The Mysterious Island, Lost in the Cities, Lost Tomb, Galileo, Twinning Hypnos, Abduction and Socha.

WebTVAsia is a Malaysia-founded company and part of the Malaysian National Delegation at MIPCOM 2018. The esteemed delegation was led by YB Gobind Singh Deo, Minister of Communications & Multimedia and Shakib Ahmad Syakir, Acting Director General of the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (FINAS).

About WebTVAsia

WebTVAsia is the leading media entertainment group in Asia with regional presence in 11 countries: Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It has diversified businesses in film & TV production, music studio, platforms & networks, creator & artiste management, events & experiences and media marketing. As an official partner of YouTube, Google, Facebook, Tencent, Alibaba’s Youku-Tuduo, Baidu, Bytedance’s Jinri Toutiao and NetEase, WebTVAsia manages over 3,000 premium video channels that command 270 million subscribers globally with 25 billion minutes of watch time every month.

For more information, please visit www.webtvasia.com

SOURCE : Global Creative & Media Agency (GCMA)

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Name : Desmond Ngai
Senior Vice President, Global Alliances
WebTVAsia
Tel : +6012 333 1800
Email : desmond.ngai@webtvasia.com

--BERNAMA