Former tennis pro-turned-producer Ashok Amritraj is expanding his entertainment portfolio into sports, as his Hyde Park Entertainment Group and Terra Invest have acquired the Delhi franchise in the World Pickleball League (WPBL). The deal, executed through Smashers Sports, marks a strategic entry into India’s evolving sports entertainment landscape.

New Delhi [India], November 5: The 11th edition of the prestigious IIFTC Awards, Asia's largest film tourism event, took place in Mumbai. Filmmakers and actors were honoured for their exceptional contributions to promoting global tourism through cinema. The awards continued the tradition of celebrating cinematic excellence that not only entertains audiences but also inspires them to explore new destinations and cultures.

International film producer Ashok Amritraj will be honored with the Global Indian Cinematic Icon Award at the upcoming India International Film Tourism Conclave in Mumbai. The ceremony will host diplomatic representatives from more than 50 nations, including Norway, Sweden, Indonesia, Spain, and Ecuador.

The Hyde Park Entertainment Group founder, whose films have generated over $2 billion worldwide, is set to be recognized for his four-decade career spanning more than 100 productions. His notable credits include “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance,” “Bringing Down the House,” and “99 Homes,” alongside international co-productions like the Hindi-Tamil hit “Jeans.”

The rain in Cannes managed to stop for a few hours on Saturday when Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park International hosted an exclusive event for buyers on the Croisette for its upcoming project Night Boat to Tangier, with Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, director James Marsh and producers Andrew Eaton and Conor McCaughan all in attendance for the intimate event.

The project, which also stars Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Negga, follows Maurice (Fassbender) and Charlie (Gleeson), a colorful pair of gangsters from Ireland who are drug smugglers and partners with a long history of violence and intertwined personal lives. They’re back in southern Spain revisiting old haunts, old flames and dangerous local criminals all the while searching for Maurice’s estranged daughter Dilly.

Hyde Park Entertainment Group has won rights to the latest memoir by BlacKkKlansman author Ron Stallworth, From BlackKklansman to Hip Hop Cop, a project which will see that work back in the hands of scribe Kevin Willmott, who won an Oscar for adapting the author’s BlacKkKlansman.

BlacKkKlansman, directed by Spike Lee, also was based on Stallworth’s life.

From BlacKkKlansman to Hip Hop Cop continues Stallworth’s stranger-than-fiction true story as he goes undercover for the Salt Lake City Police Department, the only Black officer on the white Mormon force, to investigate the root cause of rising gang violence and a brand-new craze threatening local parents and taking their kids by storm: gangster rap. Over the course of one year in 1990-91, he navigates bias and bloodshed as he tries to bridge the gap in this culture war while also trying to catch Utah’s biggest criminal kingpin, with ramifications spanning across America. The project’s music will be filled with ’90s classic hip hop with singles from 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, N.W.A and Ice-T.

EXCLUSIVE: Hyde Park has a big package here heading into the Cannes Market: The feature take of Kevin Barry’s New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year, Night Boat to Tangier starring Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Negga. The Ashok Amritraj studio will be presenting the James Marsh-directed project to global buyers at the Cannes Marche Du Film next month, with the Oscar-winning filmmaker and Fassbender in tow. Barry is adapting the screenplay from his novel.

Set in Spain and Ireland, Night Boat to Tangier follows Maurice and Charlie, a colourful pair of gangsters from Ireland. Drug-smugglers, partners with a long history of violence and intertwined personal lives, they’re back in southern Spain re-visiting old haunts, old flames and dangerous local criminals, searching for Maurice’s estranged daughter, Dilly…

Two-time Oscar nominee/3x Golden Golden nominee and 4x BAFTA nominee Fassbender plays Maurice Hearne and Gleeson will portray his partner Charlie Redmond. Maurice and Charlie are an intimidating and sometimes extremely violent pair with a line in hilarious banter but Cynthia, played by Oscar/Golden Globe/BAFTA and Tony nominee Negga, is the brains behind their operation and a woman whose relationship with both men is tempestuous.

Screen Daily has obtained the exclusive first-look image to Hyde Park International’s (HPI) EFM sales title Marianne starring Isabelle Huppert.

The English-language film from Dark Dreams Entertainment, Cine@, Hyde Park Entertainment and Les Films du Camélia shot last November outside Paris at a location doubling for New England.

It is described as a radical piece of cinema which captures the zeitgeist and sees the sole character played by Huppert talking directly to the audience.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar nominated actress Isabelle Huppert is leading Marianne from Hyde Park International, Cine@ and James Ireland and Alex Pettyfer’s Dark Dreams Entertainment.

Writer and director Michael Rozek, who is a former journalist for such publications as Esquire and Rolling Stone, says, “Marianne is a true event. It’s not only Isabelle Huppert’s very first one-character project—a complete tour de force for one of the greatest actresses in the history of film—but also, in its breakthrough form, a zeitgeist movie, meant to exactly capture the moment we are all living in.”

EXCLUSIVE: Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment Group and Warner Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group’s film and television division, have announced the winner of the Hyde Park Entertainment & Warner Music Entertainment Fast Track Fellowship as part of their Asian Women Fellowship program.

Writer/director Tiffanie Hsu and producer Pin-Chun Liu were chosen from an initial set of ten finalists and have been awarded a $12,500 grant and development support. Their winning project, Wonderland, follows an intrepid ten-year-old who embarks on a journey to track down her mother, who disappears in Las Vegas with the family bankroll. With the help of a devious and ambitious magician, she hopes to bring her mother home in time for Christmas, before her father finds out.

EXCLUSIVE: Nearly 30 years after The Joy Luck Club changed Asian and Asian American representation in cinema, a sequel is in development with author Amy Tan and Oscar-winning screenwriter Ron Bass continuing from the former’s bestselling novel.

Also producing are Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment Group and The Judge producer Jeff Kleeman.