BONG Joon-ho, the Oscar-winning director of 2019’s critically acclaimed ‘Parasite’ has confirmed that a script for one of his two new projects has been completed.
The South Korean filmmaker – who has also written all of his films – spent all of last year working on two sequel projects.
“It feels like I’m splitting my brain in half left and right writing these two scripts.
“But I finished one last week,” Bong said recently on The Director’s Cut podcast in a conversation with ‘Knives Out’ director Rian Johnson.
Bong revealed one of the scripts is written in Korean while the other is in English.
Throughout his career, he has bounced back and forth between the languages, just about as often as he moves from genre to genre.
“The Korean film is located in Seoul and has unique elements of horror and action.
“The English project is a drama film based on a true event that happened in 2016.
“Of course I won’t know until I finish the script, but it has to be set half in the UK and half in the US,” he said.
The hints given on the English-language film have fans buzzing. 2016 was a momentous year that included the election of Donald Trump as US President and the UK’s Brexit vote.
However, knowing Bong’s history it is unlikely he will directly address these events or make the movies about them, opting instead weaving thematic elements into the background.
At last year’s Oscars event ‘Parasite’ won four major awards – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film – a major achievement for a “foreign language” movie.
Immediately after snagging Oscars glory, Bong signed on with fellow Oscar winner Adam McKay (‘The Big Short’) to develop a TV series for HBO based on ‘Parasite’. Details have been scant ever since, and there are doubts the series is still happening.
Meanwhile, no release dates have been announced for his next two movies. – The Vibes, February 17, 2021
