Film Production
MoveMe options Something Special format “Still Alive”
Mumbai: Something Special, the Seoul-based International format agency founded by format specialists president & executive director Jin Woo Hwang and EVP & head of content InSoon Kim have announced that Germany’s MoveMe has optioned the exciting mystery-reality competition Still Alive, created and represented by Something Special. Territories in the deal include Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
MoveMe, based in Cologne and Berlin, is an independent TV production company managed by the award-winning producers Andrea Schönhuber-Majewski, Meikel Giersemehl, and Christine Vescio. The core competence of the company is developing and producing entertainment formats such as shiny floor studio shows and great comedy formats, high-class documentaries and entertaining reality program, fictional and non-fictional series, and films for all media outlets.
Still Alive is a reality game show format where ten contestants find clues and complete challenges in a mysterious mansion and must stay alive for 24 hours by not breaking the hidden rules, including a veiled “death rule” that causes immediate elimination. Contestants and viewers alike will be filled with apprehension solving the riddles and trying to stay alive. This show was created with Something Special by Korea’s top-tier creators, Miyeon KIM and Bora LEE.
Something Special head of production Haeseon Park stated: “We’re thrilled to have created such an interesting, mysterious format “Still Alive” and are so pleased that MoveMe, who’ve produced great television for German audiences, will produce this exciting new show. “Still Alive” is a unique competition and will keep viewers engaged in solving the clues right along with the contestants.”
MoveMe MD Meikel Giersemehl: “’Still Alive’ is a very unique reality show! It combines hilarious game elements with the story of the ‘Death House’ and its mysterious master. The celebrities taking part in this playful show dive into a world of funny, unknown rules – the perfect setting for a super fresh reality program. We are very much looking forward to bringing this vibrant format to German TV screens!”
Film Production
Disney to cut 1,000 jobs under new chief executive
The entertainment giant’s freshly installed boss inherits a restructuring already in motion, with marketing and corporate roles bearing the brunt
CALIFORNIA: Walt Disney is preparing to slash up to 1,000 jobs in the coming weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported, as the entertainment giant’s freshly installed chief executive moves swiftly to trim fat and tighten the ship.
The cuts, less than 1 per cent of Disney’s global workforce of 231,000, will fall hardest on marketing and corporate roles. The planning, notably, began before D’Amaro formally took the top job in March, suggesting the new boss inherited a restructuring already in motion rather than one of his own making.
Driving the push is Asad Ayaz, Disney’s newly appointed chief marketing officer, who in January assumed command of a unified, company-wide marketing operation spanning film, television and streaming. His consolidation drive has been given a suitably cinematic internal name: Project Imagine.
The move is modest by Disney’s recent standards. Between 2023 and 2025, under former chief executive Bob Iger, the company eliminated roughly 8,000 positions across several brutal rounds of cuts, saving $7.5 billion, comfortably exceeding its own targets. As recently as June 2025, several hundred more jobs were axed across Disney Entertainment, hitting film and television marketing, publicity, casting, development and corporate finance.
Disney’s structural headaches are well-documented: shrinking streaming margins, a weakened box office, and fierce competition from Amazon and YouTube gnawing at its flanks. The company is merging its Disney+ and Hulu teams into a single app, has brought in consultants from Bain & Co to guide its broader cost strategy, and is betting heavily on digital growth.
The wider entertainment industry offers little comfort. Sony Pictures, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery have all taken the knife to their workforces in recent years, and further cuts loom if Paramount’s acquisition of Warner goes through.
For D’Amaro, the message is clear: there will be no honeymoon period. The magic kingdom still has some cost-cutting spells left to cast.
