RKO Pictures, Hollywood’s oldest studio, may soon have a new life in the Asian market.
The Hollywood-based entertainment group Asia Film Group will finance Asian-language remakes of RKO’s classic films. Asia Film Group will soon be meeting with production and distribution partners to discuss future projects.
This is the first time the RKO library has been made available to be remade for local markets in Asia. Asia Film Group currently holds exclusive Asian language remake rights to approximately 700 of the studio’s films.
RKO Pictures was well-known in the 1930s for their musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and worked often with Cary Grant, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, John Wayne and Shirley Temple. Howard Hughes ran the studio from 1948 to 1955.
“Asia is the next great frontier for the film industry,” RKO Pictures’ director of development Jon Reiman said. “It is a great place to explore new and exciting entrepreneurial opportunities in the industry. From a creative point of view, Asia is a place of unique innovation.”
Meng King, managing partner of Asia Film Group, estimated 3 percent-5 percent of the newly acquired titles could become box office successes. The group is a purchasing consortium of film distributors from Asia, India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.
