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 anticipate it to get so big.
This was before the free of Bong Joon-ho’s multi-Oscar triumphner 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).
“[CJ ENM] was sort of an unrecognizable production company from a marginalized place then,” shelp 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 commenceed out with the belief that the film’s concept was ahead of its time and that [maybe we] could originate an indie movie, but as we traveled around Hollywood, we authenticized that there were many masked fans of the innovative 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 achieveed out to him and asked him to be a part of the production. So he came on board as a originater,” Ko shelp. “Then Will Tracy, a screenauthorr of Succession, came on board and wrote the story. The buzz commenceed to originate from then on. Later Yorgos Lanthimos and some wonderful actors came on board.”
Bugonia is currently in production, with Lanthimos’ standard collaborator Emma Stone starring aprolongedside her Kinds of Kindness co-star Jesse Plemons. The Hollywood reoriginate was a exceptional collaboration with a convey inant Korean originater-distributor, growed by CJ ENM and Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen’s Square Peg banner. Universal Pictures’s imprint Focus Features will co-finance and allot the movie internationpartner, excluding Korea. Focus will bow the film wide in the U.S. on Nov. 7 next year.
CJ ENM executive Jerry Ko speaking at the 2024 Busan International Film Festival.
Save the Green Planet was freed in Korea in 2003 and has persistd to be accomprehendledged by critics and audiences on the festival circuit. The Hollywood reoriginate tells the story of two consillicit copying theory-obsessed protagonists who seize a CEO of a convey inant pharmaceutical company, swayd that he is an alien out to ruin the scheduleet.
“We commenceed the project with the intention of reviving honestor Jang’s sense of imagination, which was ahead of its time and was not filledy appreciated 20 years ago,” shelp Ko. “The film growed into a bigger movie than we initipartner thought. By getting people on our side who understood the film’s potential, we were able to originate buzz.”
Ko, who guides the production of Korean films at CJ ENM, also argued that Korean storytelling is well-understandn globpartner because local creators are excellent at handling hybrid genres, creating recent and flavorful stories and visuals.
“It is enticeive because it has cultural exceptionalness while communicating with a universal cinematic language that is accessible to Hollywood filmoriginaters,” Ko shelp. “We have been exploring various ways for global expocertain such as Hollywood reoriginates, and localization of hit IPs. If Korean creators come up with stories that they can do well, we help them broaden overseas in a way that suits the nature of each toil.”
At the Busan festival forum, CJ ENM also touted other titles from its 2025 lineup , including honestor Park Chan-wook’s recent film No Other Choice (toiling title), a series alteration of the film Fabricated City, and Way Back Love, scheduled to begin on Korean streamer Tving in the first half of next year.
