‘Bugonia’: How Ari Aster, ‘Succession’ Writer Will Tracy and Yorgos Lanthimos Came Together to Remake a Korean Sci-Fi Classic
When CJ Entertainment, the production team behind Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Green Planet, got the idea of remaking the 2003 cult Korean sci-fi comedy, they didn’t expect it to get so big.
This was before the release of Bong Joon-ho’s multi-Oscar winner Parasite, before Korean cinema exploded worldwide and before CJ Entertainment became one of the biggest global production outfits with its 2022 acquisition of Endeavor Content (now Fifth Season).
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“[CJ ENM] was sort of an unknown production company from a marginalized place then,” said Jerry Jerry Ko, head of CJ ENM’s film division, speaking at a forum on Navigating the New Paradigm at the 2024 Busan International Film Festival.
“We started out with the belief that the film’s concept was ahead of its time and that [maybe we] could make an indie movie, but as we traveled around Hollywood, we realized that there were many hidden fans of the original film. I happened to be in L.A. and saw Ari Aster moderating a screening of Save the Green Planet at a theater, so I reached out to him and asked him to be a part of the production. So he came on board as a producer,” Ko said. “Then Will Tracy, a screenwriter of Succession, came on board and wrote the story. The buzz started to build from then on. Later Yorgos Lanthimos and some great actors came on board.”
Bugonia is currently in production, with Lanthimos’ regular collaborator Emma Stone starring alongside her Kinds of Kindness co-star Jesse Plemons. The Hollywood remake was a unique collaboration with a major Korean producer-distributor, developed by CJ ENM and Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen’s Square Peg banner. Universal Pictures’s imprint Focus Features will co-finance and distribute the movie internationally, excluding Korea. Focus will bow the film wide in the U.S. on Nov. 7 next year.
Save the Green Planet was released in Korea in 2003 and has continued to be recognized by critics and audiences on the festival circuit. The Hollywood remake tells the story of two conspiracy theory-obsessed protagonists who kidnap a CEO of a major pharmaceutical company, convinced that he is an alien out to destroy the planet.
“We started the project with the intention of reviving director Jang’s sense of imagination, which was ahead of its time and was not fully appreciated 20 years ago,” said Ko. “The film developed into a bigger movie than we initially thought. By getting people on our side who understood the film’s potential, we were able to create buzz.”
Ko, who leads the production of Korean films at CJ ENM, also argued that Korean storytelling is popular globally because local creators are good at handling hybrid genres, creating fresh and flavorful stories and visuals.
“It is attractive because it has cultural uniqueness while communicating with a universal cinematic language that is accessible to Hollywood filmmakers,” Ko said. “We have been exploring various ways for global exposure such as Hollywood remakes, and localization of hit IPs. If Korean creators come up with stories that they can do well, we help them expand overseas in a way that suits the nature of each work.”
At the Busan festival forum, CJ ENM also touted other titles from its 2025 lineup , including director Park Chan-wook’s new film No Other Choice (working title), a series adaptation of the film Fabricated City, and Way Back Love, scheduled to launch on Korean streamer Tving in the first half of next year.
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