In the annals of his history, the 92nd Academy Awards will best be remembered as the first ceremony to award the Oscar for Best Picture to the same movie which won Best Foreign Language Film. On top of that, Bong Joon-ho also brought home the Oscars for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Parasite. Earning those accolades was the apotheosis of the South Korean film’s meteoric rise. But as glorious as it was, the film’s triumph certainly didn’t come out of anywhere. Parasite burst onto the scene at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival last May when it won the coveted Palme d’Or. Now, HBO looks to capture the momentum of the film’s success by producing a limited series based on the Best Picture winner.
Bong Joon-ho will join fellow Best Director winner Adam McKay to adapt Parasite into the story behind the upcoming series. The production will pick up on the enigmatic ending to the thriller by expanding the plot for another six hours. Joon-ho has alluded to the fact that the series provides him with the opportunity to incorporate plot points that time constraints kept him and co-writer Han from including in the original script. The series will present answers to the questions left in the minds of the audience’s mystified by the psychological thriller infused with the same social commentary on class struggle raised by the existential phantasmagoria of the feature-length film.
Marc Ruffalo is rumored to be the favorite for the series’ lead. What is confirmed thus far is that Kate Street Picture Company’s Dooho Choi, and CJ Entertainment’s Miky Lee, Cho Young Ki, and Francis Chung are each on board as executive producers. Other details are scarce as the series will be ushered into pre-production in the coming year.