Japan Production Service Firm Wowow Bridge Secures First Projects, Makes Exec Hire
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Wowow Bridge, the Tokyo-based production services firm launched by Japan's premium pay TV broadcaster Wowow last summer, has locked down its first pair of projects. The company is servicing the Tokyo shoot for the series finale of FBI: International from Universal Television, Wolf Entertainment and CBS Studios. The series finale shoot follows Wowow Bridge's extensive Japan servicing work on the recently wrapped Neuromancer, Skydance and Anonymous Content's much anticipated big-budget sci-fi drama series that will premiere globally on Apple TV+.
Wowow planted its flag in the production services business last year in hopes of encouraging and profiting from a recent surge of industry interest in Japan-set live-action content. The Wowow Bridge subsidiary was set up to provide a full suite of services to international film and television projects targeting shoots in Japan. The company's decision to launch a production services arm grew from its experience as a co-producer of Max's acclaimed crime series Tokyo Vice. The show's executive producer, Kayo Washio, who serves as Wowow's head of U.S. operations and chief producer for international co-productions, acquisitions and distribution, was instrumental in bringing the show to Japan and supplying an array of on-the-ground relationships.
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Key to the company's play is Japan's newly launched and still modest international production incentive. The incentive offers a cash rebate of up to 50 percent on qualifying expenses, capped at 1 billion yen (about $7 million). Wowow Bridge secured incentive funding for all three of the projects it has worked on to date. Wowow's Washio was instrumental in lobbying for the creation of the Japan incentive in the months and years leading up to Tokyo Vice's first season shoot in 2022.
On the executive front, Wowow Bridge says it recently brought on board veteran producer Mitsutoshi Hamazaki (Tokyo Vice, Earthquake Bird, Snake Eyes), one of the surprisingly few experienced hands in Japan with credits on international productions. Hamazaki will serve as the primary line producer for all of Wowow Bridge's Japan shoots.
'We hired Mitsutoshi because I saw firsthand how invaluable he was during Tokyo Vice Season 1,' said Washio. 'I believe he's the best line producer in Japan and together we're building the strongest possible team to support international productions.'
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Yahoo
13 minutes ago
- Yahoo
This movie ruined my career and ended my dating life. 30 years later, it's seeing a resurgence on Netflix.
William McNamara opens up to Yahoo about "Copycat" — the film that derailed his career — and how it's suddenly finding a new life 30 years later, thanks to Netflix. In high school and into college, I watched my VHS copy of 1988's Stealing Home approximately 876 times. William McNamara, with his tousled hair and Hollywood-approved cheekbones, played a teen whose relationship with his childhood babysitter defined his coming of age. Back then, McNamara was on a path to leading man status. The heartthrob graced the pages of fan magazines, made a movie with the Coreys (Feldman and Haim), shared the screen with rising star Reese Witherspoon and was cast as golden-age icon Montgomery Clift. He even dated Brooke Shields. Everything was coming up Billy — and then he sort of vanished. Blame Copycat — or at least he does. In the 1995 psychological thriller starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter, McNamara played a clean-cut sociopath. Perhaps too well. 'It ruined my career,' he tells Yahoo. 'I was on the leading man trajectory — the good guy roles. All of a sudden … casting agents said, 'No, I saw Billy in Copycat. He's too edgy. He's too dark. He's too comfortable in that role. There's no acting. That had to be him.' After that, the parts McNamara got offered changed, and his leading man status faded. It also killed his dating life. Women 'saw the movie, and my character disturbed them,' he says. So you can imagine the whiplash he felt when, 30 years later, Copycat landed on Netflix and rocketed to the platform's global Top 10 the week of June 16, charting in 46 countries. The film that derailed his career was suddenly back. Stunned by its resurgence, McNamara talks to Yahoo about the film's surprise second life, the toll it took on his career and his hope for another shot. The comeback McNamara had no idea the Jon Amiel-directed film landed on Netflix until his social media started blowing up in June. 'I was getting 100 new Instagram followers a day and all these [direct] messages,' he says. 'I go on IMDbPro's STARmeter, and usually I'm between 5,000 to 10,000, which is not bad for a '90s star, by the way. I was (No.) 165, above Angelina Jolie. I thought it was a mistake. Then a couple of people started texting: 'Hey, Copycat is trending.' The whole thing 'blew my mind,' he says of Copycat getting 6 million views in a week on the streaming service. It also 'tells me that I make an impression on people. I have a supporting role in Copycat. For that many people to look me up [says something]. They should give me another shot today.' The killer role that changed everything McNamara was cast against type as Peter Foley — a soft-spoken, button-down shirt-wearing guy who's secretly mimicking infamous murderers. 'I didn't suspect at all that I would be asked to do a serial killer role,' he says. 'I thought he was interested in me for the detective role [that went to] Dermot Mulroney.' At his two meetings with the director, he didn't read lines. They talked, which McNamara says felt more like 'a psychiatric tour of my life' than an audition. Finally, an offer followed. 'My agent at the time said, 'They want you to play the serial killer,'' he recalls. 'I was like, 'Really? I don't know if I could do that.' He said, 'This is an important film. … It's Warner Bros. You need to do this.' I thought, It seems difficult, but at the time, I was not a superstar. The money was very good, and [so was the opportunity to work] on a big studio movie with Sigourney and Holly and Dermot and Harry Connick Jr. … It was like, 'OK, I gotta do it. I gotta just figure this out.'' McNamara prepared extensively for the role, working with forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz, who consulted on the highest-profile criminal cases like Jeffrey Dahmer, and FBI profiler Robert Ressler, paying them out of his own pocket. 'I did an interesting, definitely unique portrayal of a serial killer, and everybody liked it,' he says. 'I got letters from Warner Bros. and [Regency Enterprises founder] Arnon Milchan, so it seemed everything was good and my career was taking off. Then I was walking through [L.A.'s] Westwood … and two UCLA girls recognized me: 'Hey, we just saw your movie.' I thought they meant Stealing Home, my big movie everybody recognized me from, but they said, 'No, Copycat.' It turns out they had participated in a test screening of the yet-to-be-released film. 'I said, 'How was the movie?' and they replied, 'Not too good. You didn't score well,' he says. He thought it was a joke until the next day, when his agent called. 'He said, 'I've got good news and bad news,'' McNamara says. 'Good news: They're not going to fire you. Bad news: Your movie didn't test well. But it's not just you. … They've hired Frank Darabont to rewrite the script, and you're going to reshoot for 21 days.' A surprise acting coach and men in black Being told reshoots are needed is something 'no actor wants to hear,' McNamara says. But, 'it wasn't really all my fault.' McNamara says he based his character on what he learned through his research, but his performance wasn't 'Hollywood' enough. 'Most serial killers are not movie stars or wildly entertaining people,' he says. 'They're cerebral and very introverted. It wouldn't be exciting to follow the real Jeffrey Dahmer around. You need Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs. … It didn't translate. It was unique — nobody had done this particular portrayal of a serial killer — but it was not Hollywood. I learned that lesson.' Leading up to the reshoots, McNamara was feeling 'panicked.' His mentor, actor Roddy McDowall, offered to have 'my friend Tony coach you' on the script. 'Tony' turned out to be Anthony Hopkins. 'I brought all my research,' McNamara says. 'I handed it to [Hopkins], and he throws it away. He said, 'That got in your way. No more research. You want to keep it simple, stupid. We're going to memorize your lines backward and forward, and then we're just going to make it a joyous occasion. You're not a serial killer. This is a comedy, and you want to have fun.' It changed my whole perspective on acting.' While he was Hopkins-trained, the pressure was on. The first day back on the set, McNamara arrived, and there were seven or eight men in black suits with their arms crossed. ''They're here for you,'' he says Amiel told him of the FBI look-alikes who turned out to be studio execs, including then-Warner Bros. chairman Terry Semel. 'If you don't knock it out of the ballpark today, they have somebody waiting [to replace you].' McNamara delivered, but when the film was released to largely positive reviews, he immediately felt a shift in the roles he was offered. 'Before Copycat, I had done a lot of movies playing the leading man, the straight and narrow guy,' he says. 'My agent would [try to get me] edgier roles, and it was, 'No … he's too soft. He's too boy next door. He doesn't have any edge.'' When Copycat came out, 'All of a sudden, I'm not on the leading man track anymore because of this dark, edgy guy I played,' he says. 'I started being offered not B movies but [also] not A+ movies to play the bad guy. But for lots of money. I had two mortgages. I had a house on the beach in Malibu. I took the money, basically.' McNamara's career path veered from the high-profile good-guy leading man roles to more supporting turns in film and television. However, 'I continued to work,' he says. 'I work all the time. I'm very lucky.' His professional life wasn't his only disappointment. McNamara's romantic life suffered too. 'I was a single bachelor and did well with the girls back then,' he says. 'After Copycat came out, [it changed]. [I'd ask a woman], 'Hey, can I get your number?' And she's like, 'Yeah, um, I don't know. I just don't get a good vibe about you.'' He recalled telling his therapist, 'Something really weird is going on. Every girl is rejecting me. She said, 'Do you think it might be your role?'' They deduced that Copycat viewers didn't consciously recognize McNamara from the film because his role was supporting, but they subconsciously associated him with his creepy character who drugged drinks and kidnapped and tortured his victims. Luckily, he was able to turn the 'Billy McNamara charm' back around. (For the record, he's never married, but is currently in a relationship.) Coming soon: His dream role With new fans discovering his old movies, McNamara says he'd love to see Stealing Home, 'which didn't get the right amount of attention at the time,' and the 'zany and funny' 1994 film Chasers get their due. As for his future dream role, it's one 'I created for myself,' he says. McNamara wrote, directed and produced 10 episodes of The Trouble With Billy, a comedy series in which he also stars, about an exaggerated version of himself. It's about a former '90s heartthrob's quest to finance his dog's life-saving heart transplant. (McNamara's an animal activist, making headlines for his efforts.) The series, which is being shopped around, was created 'out of desperation because for years, I've always wanted to do comedy [but was told], 'You're not funny. You're a dramatic actor,'' he says. He's had fun leaning into the washed-up actor vibe. "[I was told], 'Don't ever show [the series] to a girl you're interested in because it portrays you in a very bad light, like a loser.' But I've never been homeless. I've never lived in my car. They don't do heart transplants on dogs. I have not been abducted by aliens,' he laughs. 'I'm proud of it. It's pretty good.' Solve the daily Crossword
Eater
2 hours ago
- Eater
The Best Things Eater Portland Ate in July 2025
Welcome to The Best Dishes the Eater Portland Team Ate This Month, featuring the dishes that the Portland-based Eater team can't stop thinking about. Panisse at L'Echelle Panisse at L'Echelle. Brenna Houck I finally got to check out L'Echelle this past month, the new French restaurant from owner Luke Dirks and chef Mika Paredes that's been widely heralded as the late chef Naomi Pomeroy's final restaurant. Located along the busy SE Division dining corridor, L'Echelle occupies a corner space and is all trimmed out in royal blue, giving the feel of an understated but refined bistro. The menu is fittingly understated. My co-conspirator Nicole and I sampled a few things including the oeufs in aioli with a crown of salmon roe, pork crepinette, seared duck breast, and salad verte. But the standout were the panisse — little cubes of fluffy chickpea fritter served with a sauce Algerienne. The fritters themselves had the crisp outer texture of a tot and a fluffy whipped chickpea interior to slather or dip into the creamy sauce. To top it off, they're gluten-free. — Brenna Houck, cities manager The Sinful Trinity pie from Prettyboy Pizza The Sinful Trinity at Prettyboy Pizza Nicole Fellah It's not often that a gluten-free pizza pie comes out so aesthetically appealing that my gluten-tolerant dining companion reflexively reaches for a slice. But that's what happened during a recent visit to Prettyboy Pizza, the newish pizza shop housed in Little Beast Brewing, one of Portland's easiest-to-like breweries (it's probably that butter-yellow signage and homey outdoor patio). Here, ordering via QR code doesn't seem charmless once you encounter the friendly staff shuttling crispy, cheese-laced pies out of the kitchen in rapid succession. The pizza here falls somewhere between 'grandmother-style,' as Prettyboy calls it, and classic Detroit, with a sharp, craggy cheese rim that crackles at first bite. Chef Justin Moore masterminded the gluten-free crust, which, while thin, has surprising airiness and remains sturdy enough to stand up to a trio of sauces. Any pie blanketed with blistered pepperoni cups is worth ordering, but I went with the Sinful Trinity — slathered with marinara, vodka, and pesto sauces, then finished with nutty Pecorino. Either way, you can't miss. — Nicole Fellah, Eater cities manager Kimchi mac and cheese at Frybaby Chicken and kimchi mac and cheese from Frybaby. Brenna Houck It can be intense and unforgiving cooking at a big festival. Such was undoubtedly the case at Project Pabst in July, fortunately Frybaby came in clutch with a limited but lovely menu with under a 10-minute wait. My partner and I ordered the chicken tenders tossed in ginger soy and an order of the kimchi macaroni and cheese. The chicken tenders were extremely hot and crispy — and a big portion for the price — but the kimchi mac may have impressed us more. The dish is super creamy and a little spicy with a generous helping of furikake striping the top of the cup. It was maybe too hot of a day for such a rich bowl of macaroni but not a single bite went to waste. My partner remarked it might be the best restaurant macaroni he's had. Shoutout to the team for pulling off such a seamless operation. — B.H. Egg custard tart and BEC bánh xèo from Berlu What's there to say about Berlu that hasn't already been said about Berlu? The Vietnamese cafe reopened to much deserved fanfare in late June, satisfying longtime fans who mourned the loss of its inventive diasporic pastries when chef Vince Nguyen closed it in October to reimagine its future. Now back in a bigger, brighter space with its beloved pastry lineup and a couple new savory additions, Berlu has entered its next era. I made two visits in one week on a recent trip to Portland. The first pastry that broke my brain with its goodness wasn't the very popular, beautifully corrugated pandan bánh bò nướng — it was a coconut egg custard tart crowned with a shaggy layer of salted egg yolk. The crisp cassava crust and not-too-sweet filling gets a shock of salty richness from the dried yolk, making for a nuanced bite. The BEC bánh xèo, one of Berlu's newer savory dishes, takes a bacon-egg-and-cheese approach to a Vietnamese crepe kicked up with turmeric, coconut milk powder, and rice flour. I ordered it without bacon and still got enough fattiness from the the egg, cheese, and accompanying avocado, the bundle of which I tucked into lettuce, topped with herbs, and dunked into tangy nước chấm. — N.F. R&R relleno at Javelina The wall of books and art stands tall as the first thing a diner sees walking into Javelina, a display that captures contemporary Native American culture (Poet Warrior by former national poet laureate Joy Harjo) and fine dining (cookbooks by Enrique Olvera). A stuffed pepper at the restaurant works to blend those ideas together. The blue corn batter is light and not too stodgy, the white tepary beans firm, the verde sauce on top vibrant and fragrant. It's stuffed with rabbit and rattlesnake, a lighter meat pairing in a well-made sausage. Chef Alexa Numkena-Anderson's restaurant and dishes provide both neighborhood vibes, a place to eat on a regular Sunday evening, and something much more profound, a restaurant merging her high-end chef skills with a cuisine unfamiliar to European fine dining kitchens. The rabbit and rattlesnake relleno is a triumphant topnote crowning all that complexity. -Paolo Bicchieri, associate editor Fried chicken biscuit at Jojo The chicken biscuit at Jojo. Brenna Houck A friend and I hit up Jojo for Saturday brunch this month — at opening time, when Portlanders were already clamoring to get into the restaurant. We placed our orders at the host stand and snagged a picnic table on the patio. In these expensive times, you'd expect restaurant portions to begin to shrink. However, I'm pleased to report that this is not so at Jojo, where you can find a fried chicken and biscuit sandwich so hulking that you may struggle to finish it in one sitting — particularly if you ordered jojos on the side. This sandwich was not only huge, it exceeded all expectations. The biscuit holds up well against the chicken and sauce and the meat itself is tender, juicy, and well-seasoned on the inside with a shatteringly crisp skin. — B.H. Tamarind mala fried chicken from Oma's Hideaway Sometimes a severely gluten-intolerant person wants to eat somewhere so badly they will joyfully tolerate a gluten hit (and weather the aftershock the next day). That person is me at Oma's Hideaway, a restaurant I visited once two years ago and vowed to revisit on my next trip. This time, I tried the Oma's Table tasting menu, which offers an array of Southeast Asian small plates before the pièce de résistance: a tamarind-mala fried chicken platter. Spun with sweet and spicy tamarind sauce, smashed sichuan peppercorns, crushed peanuts, lime leaf salt, and 'hella herbs,' as the restaurant's website states, this is a bite you can't stop picking up even as there are other dishes on the table that demand attention, like cooling cucumber raita salad, caramelized carrot and leek curry alongside flaky roti canai, and salted egg yolk curry fries pocked with fermented serrano chiles and scallion (we added the latter on). Wash it all down with whatever the cocktail for a cause is, or something zero-proof like the 'I Am Serious' with pandan, coconut, and lime. — N.F. Eater Portland All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Gizmodo
3 hours ago
- Gizmodo
Anime Food Just Reached Mouthwatering New Heights in ‘Dan Da Dan'
Anime has had a storied relationship with making food look more appealing than in real life. The most prominent example of this is the legendary Studio Ghibli, which has made a career of putting painstaking work into creating its fluid animation of food, practically wafting smoke from behind the screen and beckoning viewers to lean in closer. Dan Da Dan, ever the rebel, has opted for the opposite route in its latest episode by going full live action with its culinary the fifth episode of the second season of Dan Da Dan, titled 'We Can All Stay There Together,' Okarun, Momo, and their crew continue a tradition made famous by One Piece. After a harrowing battle, they celebrated their hard-earned victory with a feast of delicious foods. This victory involved stopping a raging volcano from setting fire to a nearby village and capturing Evil Eye, who resides in Jiji Enjoji's body. The otherwise pretty chill episode's biggest plot development is the discovery that Jiji and Evil Eye switch personalities whenever cold water is poured on him, reminiscent of Ranma 1/2 (which Dan Da Dan references explicitly by having him sing the original anime's theme song). However, we're not here to discuss the plot. We're here to talk about food. And this episode is chock-full of it in its opening and closing moments. The first is the presentation of a stuffed-to-the-brim bowl of hot pot. Of course, when the characters interact with the communal meal, the live-action food turns into 2D before getting nommed into their mouths. Regardless, Dan Da Dan's decision to drop all pretenses and post a photo of food instead of animating it was equal parts hilarious and mesmerizing. In fact, the feat was so surprising that even manga creator Yukinobu Tatsu voiced his surprise during his live Twitter reaction to the new episode. The episode doubles down on the visual gag with another live-action shot of some food in the episode's final scene as well, making it exceedingly clear that their inspired gastronomic animation decision was no fluke. THE REAL LIFE PIC OF THE MARINATED CHICKEN IS SO UNHINGED AND CREEPY WTH — Hikaru 🖤 Yoshiki (@hikayoshilover) July 12, 2025Dan Da Dan isn't the only Netflix anime that has dipped its toe into showcasing live-action food in its episodes as of late. Cyangames Pictures' anime adaptation of horror manga The Summer Hikaru Died did so as well, though for more shock-horror purposes. Inverse to Dan Da Dan showcasing food so delicious it'll make you want to open up your food delivery app and make some knee-jerk disposable income decisions, The Summer Hikaru Died showed a jumpscare frame of marinated raw chicken to exaggerate the feeling of sticking one's hand inside their demonic, puppeteered friend's body. (Note: If you like Dan Da Dan, take this as a recommendation to watch The Summer Hikaru Died as well.) ご視聴ありがとうございました！2話の制作進行を担当させて頂きました！大迫さんを中心的に最高なカットを沢山作ることが出来て、関わって頂いた方には感謝しきれません！ 個人的に実写撮影が初めてでしたので楽しく撮影出来ました！ ※鶏肉のカットは唐揚げにしてスタッフで美味しく頂きました！ — 土屋晶治 (@tsuchi31478044) July 12, 2025While The Summer Hikaru Died's gnarly implementation of live-action anime food succeeded in being unnervingly macabre, the anime's production crew assured fans that their live-action implementation of food was put to good use when they turned it into chicken karaage after the episode ended and shared it with the staff. Hopefully, the folks over at Science Saru got to dig in on their live-action anime food too once they finalized episode five of Dan Da Dan. New episodes of Dan Da Dan air every Thursday on Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Hulu. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
