Focus Features has secured worldwide rights to Yorgos Lanthimos’ upcoming feature Bugonia, which reunites the Greek director with Kinds Of Kindness stars Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons.
Focus will release Bugonia in the US while Universal Pictures will handle international distribution, excluding South Korea. Distribution of Lanthimos’ Oscar-winners The Favourite and Poor Things as well as Kinds Of Kindness were handled by Searchlight.
The upcoming film is a remake of South Korean sci-fi comedy Save The Green Planet, which was directed by Jang Joon-hwan and won a host of awards after playing numerous festivals in 2003. The English-language version was developed by CJ ENM with Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen at Square Peg. The production has been financed by Fremantle and CJ ENM.
The story centres on two conspiracy-obsessed young men, who kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth. The cast is led by Plemons and Stone, who are in Cannes alongside Lanthimos, where Kinds Of Kindness received its world premiere in Competition today (May 17).
Expected to shoot this year in the UK and New York, the script has been written by Will Tracy, whose credits include HBO’s Succession and Mark Mylod’s The Menu.
Producers are Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe for Element Pictures; Lanthimos, Aster and Knudsen; Stone, through her Fruit Tree banner; and Miky Lee and Jerry Kyoungboum Ko of CJ ENM.
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