A ‘Parasite’ Limited Series Is Coming to HBO
The lockiest lock when this year’s Academy Awards are announced next Monday has to be Bong Joon-ho’s brilliant satire Parasite earning one of the five spots in the Best International Feature category. And it’s got to be the odds-on favorite to win the whole thing, considering the mountain of awards and enormous worldwide box office gross so far. ($130 million and counting!)
Given the film’s enormous American success in subtitled Korean, it’s not surprising in the slightest that Hollywood wants to team with Bong on something. (He previously worked with the Weinstein Company on Snowpiercer and with Netflix on Okja.) According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO is in talks to acquire Bong’s next American project — a “limited series” version of Parasite. The show will team Bong with an American comic filmmaker with very simpatico views on class and wealth:
Bong Joon Ho, who wrote and directed the Palm d’Or winner and Oscar hopeful, is teaming with Adam McKay, whose recent work The Big Short and Vice has earned him multiple awards nominations ... It is unclear if the limited series will be some sort of follow-up to the movie or an English-language remake.
A remake sounds boring; the Korean Parasite was already perfect and wouldn’t necessarily be improved in English (or as a limited series). Some kind of sequel or expansion or tangentially-related story set in the same world could be interesting, provided it’s a story Bong is really interested in telling. And Bong and McKay is an intriguing pair. I’d love to see them cook something up together. I’m just not sure that thing needs to be another version of Parasite.
Gallery — The Best Movies of 2019 (Including Parasite):