Updated every Friday 12:00 PM
November 1st - November 7

APPLE TV
Apple TV+ announced the premiere date for the new conspiracy thriller “Prime Target” starring SAG Award winner Leo Woodall (“The White Lotus,” “One Day”) and Quintessa Swindell (“Black Adam,” “In Treatment”). Created by award-winning writer Steve Thompson (“Sherlock,” “Vienna Blood”), who also serves as executive producer, the new drama is produced for Apple TV+ by New Regency with Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions. The eight-episode series will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on January 22, 2025, with the first two episodes, followed by one episode weekly, every Wednesday through March 5, 2025...

Hungary’s 30% tax incentive for film and TV, which has helped attract recent Hollywood shoots like “Dune: Part Two,” “Maria” and “The Brutalist” to the country, has been extended by six years. Hungary, continental Europe’s biggest production hub, has attracted direct annual production spend totalling $910 million, a fourfold increase in the last five years. Originally launched in 2004, the Hungarian film support scheme has contributed to such Hollywood films as “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” “A Good Day to Die Hard,” “The Martian” and “Terminator: Dark Fate.” Other international productions to have filmed in Hungary include “Poor Things,” Ridley Scott’s “Alien: Romulus,” “Dune: Prophecy,” “The Day of the Jackal,” “FBI: International” and “NCIS.”...

Sundance Institute and Gold House have named the 10 recipients of the One House Filmmakers Fund. The fund is designed to provide unrestricted financing, educational support and amplification for filmmakers from historically underrepresented communities. The 10 filmmakers are Pierre Coleman (“Ricky”), Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan (“Hum”), Colette Ghunim (“Traces of Home”), Julia Kennelly (“Clare”) Sofian Khan (“Karachi Sky”), Naomi Ko (“Marry Korean”), April Maxey (“Work”), John Sutter (“Planet A”), Angela Tucker (“The Inquisitor”) and Jing Wang (“Ride With Delivery Workers”)...

Filmmaker Adam Morse, who directed Billy Zane-starrer “Lucid,” is set to get in front of the camera in a new documentary, titled “Blind Ambition,” about his career. The unscripted project, directed by Ukrainian-British filmmaker Julia Varvara, will follow Morse’s journey from losing his eyesight at the age of 19 due to the incurable condition Lebers Hereditary Optic Neuropathy to shooting a SuperBowl commercial earlier this year. Among other achievements, Morse has walked the runway at London Fashion Week and did his own stunts in AppleTV+’s “See.”...

Asian film and tech leaders gathered at TIFFCOM, the market allied to the Tokyo International Film Festival, to discuss the transformative impact of generative AI on film production. Kevin D.C. Chang, AI director and CEO of Metavision Co., South Korea, demonstrated how AI tools helped him reduce a $4.1 million production budget to approximately $400,000 for “Cinque Terra,” a film set across five international locations. “I made it in my computer and by myself. I made music, I made sound design, I did everything,” Chang said, noting that AI eliminated traditional location shooting costs while maintaining production quality. The Japanese government is taking steps to support AI adoption in content creation. Norihiko Saeki, director at Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, revealed that the ministry has launched the GENIAC (Generative AI Accelerator Challenge) program and is developing guidelines for AI use in content production. “We are trying to promote collaboration between animation companies and cutting-edge technology companies,” Saeki said....

N Lite animation studio has unveiled a new partnership with Emmy-winning Japanese anime studio Gonzo K.K. (“Afro Samurai”) and Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” director Peter Ramsey to produce two animated projects: a noir thriller feature titled “Ripper” and the sci-fi adventure series “Hotaru.” Ramsey is lined up to executive producer and co-write the screenplay for “Ripper,” a live-action/anime hybrid feature set in post-wwii Japan. Currently in development, the film tells the story of two detectives hunting down a serial killer who took the lives of the women that each of them loved. The project is created by Samantha Inoue Harte and co-writers Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and Rafael Antonio Ruiz...