New Singapore-based production company HiJack Pictures is being launched by distributor and producer Clover Films and J Team Productions, the company controlled by the country’s most commercially successful filmmaker Jack Neo.
HiJack will share the ownership of both parties. It also sets itself the mission to “produce quality content that appeals to the global audience.” The new company’s board directors are Clover Films founders Lim Teck and Paulyn Chua and J Team’s Neo and Irene Kng.
“We hope to nurture a new generation of Singaporean filmmakers, to produce commercially viable content which also connects with the audience. We hope to work with regional partners in producing a slate of feature content that I will helm or supervise. There is great potential in this collaboration of our two companies and we look forward to making this synergy work,”Neo. Neo did not disclose any new titles or business relationships.
“We came up with the name HiJack Pictures as a little tribute to Singapore’s most successful filmmaker at the box-office [Neo]. Of course, we would not mind ‘hijacking’ all the film projects in the market as well,”Lim Teck. “In drawing on our respective areas of expertise in production, marketing and distribution, we are confident of creating something much greater than the sum of its parts.”
Clover Films, founded in 2001, specializes on the production and distribution of Asian films from Southeast Asia. It has distributed and promoted titles like “Train to Busan,” “Shockwave 1 & 2,” “Shoplifters,” “Parasite,” “Dear Tenant” “Better Days.”It has participated in several co-productions. “Filial Party,” “King of Mahjong,” “Ramen The,” “Reunion Dinner” and Neo’s “Ah Boys to Men 1 & 2.”
Clover sold a majority of its equity stake to GHY Culture, a stock-listed mini conglomerate. The deal was terminated without explanation just a few short months later.
J Team’s credits include the “Ah Boys to Men”Franchisee “I Not Stupid”The award-winning franchise “Homerun.”Neo received the Cultural Medallion in 2005 to recognize his contribution to Singapore’s media industry.