Veteran Japanese movie producer Muneyuki Kii has assembled a daring new enterprise to shake up Japan’s historically sclerotic and risk-averse strategy to film financing. The chief, previously a lead producer at Tokyo-based studio Toei, revealed the launch Thursday of K2 Footage, a mini-studio that goals to convey a extra direct, Hollywood-style mannequin of movie funding to Japan’s trade.
The brand new firm will launch a content material fund — dubbed the “K2P Movie Fund I” — to finance each live-action and animated Japanese options. K2P additionally has lined up a powerful roster of Japanese administrators to collaborate with on its first slate, together with Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters), native trade mainstay Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, 13 Assassins), Shunji Iwai (Love Letter), Miwa Nishikawa (Sway), Kazuya Shiraishi (The Satan’s Path), and main anime studio MAPPA, identified for mega-hits like JUJUTSU KAISEN 0 and Assault on Titan.
Kii will function K2P’s CEO, whereas different senior management at launch embody Tetsuro Koda, co-founder of Japanese gaming and comics publishing firm Akatsuki, and Fred Schmidt, chairman in Asia for funding administration firm BentallGreenOak. Kii spent over 25 years at Toei, producing each live-action and anime options. Some highlights embody: Hideaki Anno’s Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo and Shin Kamen Rider, Takehiko Inoue’s The First Slam Dunk, Iwai’s Kyrie and Miike’s First Love, amongst many others.
For many years, most Japanese motion pictures have been made beneath the nation’s so-called “manufacturing committee” system, whereby a gaggle of movie corporations, TV stations and publishers — typically as many as 10 entities — band collectively to co-finance a challenge. Though an efficient technique of decreasing monetary threat for established trade members, the system has lengthy been topic to criticism for the best way it stifles artistic risk-taking, limits exterior funding, and diminishes the negotiating energy of artists.
“We search to create a brand new technique, evolving this movie ecosystem into considered one of ‘movie manufacturing funds,’ following an strategy utilized in Hollywood and world wide,” K2 Footage mentioned in a press release. “This new movie ecosystem at which K2 Footage goals will enrich movie manufacturing by returning earnings historically accruing to conventional movie corporations to each traders and creators.”
The corporate’s launch comes at a time when many analysts have gotten bullish on the Japanese leisure sector’s rising worldwide potential. The corporate’s fund will give traders in Japan and abroad a brand new avenue for taking part in high-profile Japanese leisure initiatives.
“By way of the launch of K2 Footage, we’re aiming to convey a serious revolution to the Japanese movie trade, whereas additionally giving new home and abroad traders the possibility to enter this flourishing trade,” says Kii. “It’s clear there’s rising curiosity in Japanese-related content material world wide, so we’re dedicated to creating our native movie trade extra lively, fairer and worthwhile within the world market, whereas additionally constructing a sturdy content material pipeline that guarantees to captivate audiences.”
To mark the launch of the corporate and fund, K2 Footage will host a presentation throughout the upcoming Cannes Movie Competition. The occasion will happen on the JW Marriott resort on Could 18 at 12:45 p.m., together with appearances by Miwa Nishikawa and Takashi Miike.