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Film viewership amongst Netflix‘s APAC subscribers grew by nearly 20% in 2024, said Minyoung Kim, Netflix’s head for APAC content material (excluding Korea).
Speaking on the streamer’s APAC showcase in Tokyo, Kim added that greater than 100 APAC movies peaked in Netflix’s world high 10 listing for non-English movies all through 2024. These have included titles like Korea’s Uprising, Indonesia’s The Shadow Strays and Japan’s City Hunter.
Overall, Netflix members globally watch a median of seven movies a month.
Kim additionally highlighted the expansive cultural influence that the streamer’s movie slate has produced throughout Asia. For instance, when Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the favored “City Hunter” manga sequence premiered in April final 12 months, gross sales of the unique manga, together with each digital and arduous copies, went up by 900%.
Looking forward, the streamer is ready to increase its choices throughout Asia this 12 months, which incorporates two authentic zombie movies from Southeast Asia and Netflix Korea’s first-ever animated movie.
While the zombie style has lengthy been dominated by English-language titles — and lately, by Korean tasks like Train to Busan, All of Us Are Dead and Kingdom — Netflix mentioned that it’s hoping so as to add Southeast Asia’s choices to the worldwide combine. With a observe report of success in Indonesia and Thailand already with the streamer’s horror titles, Netflix can also be set to launch two authentic zombie movies from these international locations, titled Elixir and Ziam.
Malobika Banerji, the Netflix’s senior director for Southeast Asian content material, mentioned that the Indonesian and Thai groups engaged on Elixir and Ziam consulted with a number of the workforce members who labored on Korean zombie sequence Kingdom, with the Korean workforce providing recommendation in areas like make-up and results.
Over in Japan, the streamer is launching its tentpole movie Bullet Train Explosion on April 23. The movie is a reboot of the unique 1975 film The Bullet Train, which impressed the Hollywood blockbuster Speed.
Shin Takahashi, Netflix’s head of Japanese live-action movies and sequence, mentioned that this movie marked an unprecedented scale of collaboration with Japanese railway firm JR East. The manufacturing managed to safe entry to movie one of many firm’s real-life bullet trains on a number of journeys.
“We were able to rent an entire bullet train and film it in motion seven times, travelling back and forth from Tokyo to Aomori,” mentioned Takahashi. “This was not possible in the original The Bullet Train and remains unparalleled in Japanese film production to this day. Typically, even if a train could be borrowed, filming would be limited to one or two times, making this an extraordinary level of cooperation in Japan.”
“The big difference this time is the time we took to convey the story, creative vision and intent to JR East. We were able to work with them through repeated discussions and time we spent with them during pre-production,” added Takahashi.
Netflix Japan will mark its 10-year anniversary this 12 months. Other titles on the streamer’s Japanese slate embody the recently-premiered Demon City, in addition to 10Dance, a movie in regards to the aggressive dance world, set to launch later this 12 months.
Ruchikaa Kapoor Sheikh, who leads movies for Netflix India, shared that almost half of the nation’s Netflix viewership comes from movie, which is among the highest globally. In the previous 12 months, no less than one Indian movie featured in Netflix’s world Top 10 non-English listing each week.
One of the streamer’s Indian titles this 12 months is Toaster, which stars Rajkummar Rao, who additionally serves as producer alongside his spouse, Patralekhaa. This is the primary title from Kampa Films, a manufacturing firm run by Rao and Patralekhaa.
“When we read a one-pager of Toaster, I thought that this story was very unique, so we developed it into a script,” mentioned Rao. “The writing has to be very good for comedy-genre films. The situation has to be funny, so you can just be authentic and react to the situation.”
Rao mentioned that he solely realized that he was good at comedy in 2017 when he starred in Newton, which later received Best Feature Film at India’s National Film Awards. “If you always just react to a specific situation, it will come across funny. That’s what I try to do. I try not to be funny while doing comedy, which is a very difficult task, because sometimes you get greedy, thinking that you can do more, which can ruin the scene. You actually have to be very controlled when you do comedy,” added Rao.
In Korea, the place the streamer has seen record-breaking success over the previous few years, the main focus for this 12 months is to diversify its choices, mentioned Vincent Taewon Kim, Netflix’s director for Korean content material. This 12 months’s slate consists of its first-ever animated movie, Lost in Starlight. Q3 will see the discharge of Wall to Wall, whereas Good News, The Great Flood and Kill Boksoon spinoff Mantis are set to premiere in This autumn.