Parasite director Bong Joon-ho to turn film into limited series for HBO

Film has already been tipped for success at this year's Oscars

Annabel Nugent
Friday 10 January 2020 13:49 GMT
Comments
Parasite - Trailer

A limited series based on the acclaimed Korean thriller Parasite is in the works for HBO, Variety reports.

Parasite’s writer and director Bong Joon-Ho will collaborate with esteemed director Adam McKay to produce the limited series based on Bong’s highly praised film.

McKay is the director behind the award-winning TV series Succession, and the seminal comedy-drama The Big Short, which starred Christian Bale and Steve Carell.

HBO came out on top of a bidding war with Netflix for the rights to the series, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Bong’s genre-bending commentary on class warfare has been met with universal acclaim. Parasite was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture in a Foreign Language at the ceremony on 6 January, and won the esteemed Palme d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The film has been tipped for the Oscars, including as a strong contender for the Best Picture category.

Whether the limited series will entail a spin-off of the feature film or an English language remake is unclear. Bong and McKay will be working to produce the series from CJ Entertainment, the studio behind Parasite, McKay’s Hyperobject Industries, and Kate Street Picture Company, a production house founded by Bong’s producing partner, Dooho Choi.

Although things appear to be moving quickly for Parasite’s TV adaption, HBO’s corporate sibling TNT is still in the long process of adapting Bong’s previous feature film, Snowpiercer. The drama series, to which Bong is not attached, has been in the works for over four years and has already faced a number of hurdles including a change in director and network.

Parasite is Bong’s seventh feature film, all of which have also been widely praised by both critics and the public. Others include the drama-mystery Mother, drama-comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite, and most recently the heart-wrenching drama-sci fi, Okja.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in