Spotlight on Malaysia: Are the global streamers speaking your language?

Welcome to Streamlined, a weekly newsletter that will summarise and analyse events in the content industries outside of the Americas & Europe.

Every few weeks, Streamlined will look at a territory that we haven’t heard much from during the pandemic. This week, we’re shining the spotlight on Malaysia, while in other news, it’s been a busy week for Asian directors boarding high-end English-language series; CJ ENM and Stan are expanding their content war chests; and several new Indian and Hong Kong projects have been announced, along with some festival and arthouse channel news.

MALAYSIA POST-PANDEMIC TEMPERATURE CHECK

After being entirely closed to visitors for two years, Malaysia is reopening its international borders to quarantine-free travel on April 1, 2022, although there will be some Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) yet to be announced. How have the local content industries been faring during these past two years?

CINEMAS were forced to close in March 2020 and aside from a few smal…