After years of blockbusters and special effects eye candy, it looks like Timur Bekmambetov is ready to pull a bit of a Garry Marshall.
Bekmambetov and Chinese filmmaker Eva Jin are the first two filmmakers to sign up for the remake of the Russian hit "Yolki" ("Six Degrees Of Celebration") whose sequel "Yolki 2" is currently blowing up the box office in its homeland. The remake will take place around the Chinese New Year, centering on a little girl who is eager to get a message to the President, and decides to use the popular Kevin Bacon theory to get the job done. Six handshakes will connect people across eight stories and time zones that will see the story span from a lowly migrant right up to the President himself. Heartwarming and inclusive! Bemambetov and Jin will be joined by six other directors each taking a segment/storyline in this Chinese/Russian co-production.
It seems folks overseas aren't tired of the "New Year's Eve"/"Valentine's Day"/"Love Actually"/"Paris Je T'Aime" format (yet). Can't say we care about at this at all though we suppose we're mildly interested to see who else comes on board. [Deadline]
You're drawing an odd correlation between films like "New Year's Eve" and something like "Paris je t'aime" – the latter is an anthology of completely unrelated short films whose only connection is that they have something to do with Paris. That's much different from a single film with a bunch of subplots, yet you refer to them as the same "format." They're not.