Nippon Television Touts Film and TV Credentials at Tokyo Market
Nippon Television, the Japanese broadcast and production group that owns Hulu Japan, has made headlines in recent months with the success of its TV formats. However, it is using the recent Busan and this month’s Tokyo rights market to tout a slate of theatrical movies.
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In the live action category, it is readying “Nemesis,” a two-years-later spin off from the Nemesis Detective Agency TV drama series, which is built around two female sleuths, one a reckless genius, the other a self-proclaimed genius who is largely incompetent. The storyline of the feature film involves a succession of the detectives’ friends being killed off and the urgent need to solve the case. Being readied for an end of March 2023 theatrical release, the film is firected by Irie Chie (“Memoirs of Murdrer,” “AI Amok”) from a screenplay by Hata Takehiro (“Hero-drama” “Dragon Zakura-drama”). It stars Hirose Suze, Sakurai Sho and Eguchi Yosuke.
The company will give a December 2022 release to animation film “Lonely Castle in the Mirror.” Directed by Hara Keiichi (“Miss Hokusai”), the film is the tale of a teenage who refuses to go to school due to the level of bullying. Passing her days at home she finds a passage into a castle, meets six other teens in a similar predicament and encounters a ‘Wolf Queen’ who sets them a deadline to find a powerful key. The screenplay is by Maruo Miho (“A Dog of Flanders”).
Nippon TV is also representing sales on the Madhouse-produced animation “Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom,” which the company identifies as completed and set for a first quarter 2023 release, without specifying a date. The story reads like a fairy tale about two neighboring kingdoms which have turned their back on each other for a hundred years, but which try to repair their relationship through the exchange of a wise man and a beautiful woman. Hamabe Minami and Kaku Kento head the Japanese-language voice cast.
Nippon TV, which has enjoyed success with unscripted formats such as “Dragons’ Den” / “Shark Tank”) and scripted formats such as “Mother,” is using the virtual TIFFCOM to showcase six additional TV shows.
They include game shows “Time Potion” and “Dark Doubt”; studio-based battle of wits “Turbo Brain”; drama series “Love With a Case” and “Home Tutor”; and survival game “Money or Junk”.
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