Wong Jing wants to cast big stars for TVB drama
12 Aug – Hong Kong director Wong Jing has big plans for his next TVB drama that would be the station's trump card in their upcoming battle with other TV stations.
According to Jayne Stars, the director is hoping to cast "Simple Life" leading actress Deanie Ip to play a major role in his 40-episode big budget drama of love and family. Other big names that he hoped to include in his cast list are Kenneth Ma, Havwick Lau and Kimmy Tong.
"TVB invested in my production company's new mainland drama, which centers around family love and revenge. [Deanie Ip] will be the matriarch. Kimmy Tong will portray her adopted daughter," he said, confirming that he had been asked by TVB's Charles Chan to help him win in the battle of drama dominance against rival stations CTI and Now TV.
However, casting an international star such as Deanie does not come cheap, as she has reportedly asked to be paid HKD 250,000 (approximately SG $40,125) for each episode that she appears in.
Wong continued: "Hawick Lau and Kenneth Ma are also actors I wish to cast. I had preliminary discussions with Deanie. When the discussions are more advanced, we can speak about it further!"
The fight over of the airwaves of Hong Kong audiences is expected to get intense in 2013. Now TV has a detective thriller drama starring veteran actor Felix Wong and his daughter Adrian Wong installed for the year, while CTV is already producing several dramas, despite the approval of their broadcasting license been delayed.
