What is next for Academy Award Winner Bong Joon Ho?

After the success of Parasite at the 2020 Academy Awards, you’ll want to see South Korean director Bong Joon Ho’s future work. What does he have in the pipeline?

The Academy Awards 2020 was a big night for director Bong Joon Ho. The acclaimed South Korean filmmaker took home four Academy Awards for his film Parasite, including Best International Film and Best Picture. It is the first non-English language film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, putting Bong’s name down beside the many pioneers of cinema.

After flying under the radar for far too long, Bong is finally getting the recognition he deserves. Known for mixing genres, experimenting with horror and diving into themes of social strife, each one of his films is a different kind of masterpiece. They’re dark and blunt with a generous amount of black comedy sprinkled into the mix, but what is his next big project?

Venture into television

After a long series of delays, the television adaption of Bong Joon Ho’s 2013 dystopian film, Snowpiercer will finally premiere on May 31, 2020, on TNT. Despite the many production issues and the fact that it hasn’t even aired yet, Snowpiercer has already been renewed for a second season. Starring Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly, the series is set to be a prequel to the film about a train full of people during a modern ice age. Bong serves as an executive producer.

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In addition to producing TNT’s Snowpiercer, Bong shared with The Hollywood Reporter his plans for developing a television adaptation of his film Parasite for HBO. Despite its success, Bong has been very vocal about his displeasure with the film’s final runtime. The typical two hours put into a feature film wasn’t enough to tell the story he wanted to tell. He plans to use the TV format to better create the six-hour feature that he originally envisioned. He will be serving as a producer alongside Adam McKay.

"“There were so many stories that I thought of that could happen in between the sequences you see in the film, and some background stories for each character. I really wanted to explore those ideas freely with a five-or six-hour film. You know, with Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, there’s a theatrical version and there’s a TV version. So, with the TV series for Parasite, I think we’ll be able to create a high-quality, expanded film.”"

Bong even teased to The Wrap some of the expanded details he will include in the series (spoilers for those who haven’t seen the film).

"“When the original housekeeper Mun Gwang (Lee Jung Eun) comes back in the late night, something happened to her face. Even her husband asked about it, but she never answered. I know why she had the bruises on her face. I have a story for that, and aside from that, why does she know the existence of this bunker? What relationship does she have with that architect to know of this bunker? So I have all these hidden stories that I have stored.”"

Plans for an action/horror film set in Seoul

Fresh off of Parasite, Bong Joon Ho already has two films in the works. One is a Korean-language film and the other is an English-language film, both of which are said to be on the same level as his films Mother and Parasite. 

The Korean film will be set in Seoul and will feature unique elements of both horror and action, whilst the English film will be based on a true event that happened in 2016 that he has yet to disclose. He told Variety that he has yet to finish the script but that as of right now he imagines half will be set in the UK and half in the US.

For anyone interested in watching more of Bong Joon Ho, his directed features include Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), Mother (2009), Snowpiercer (2013), Okja (2017) and, of course, Parasite (2019). He’s also written the scripts for the films Sea Fog (2014), Motel Cactus (1997), Phantom: The Submarine (1999), and Antarctic Journal (2005).

Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-winning film Parasite it currently playing in select theaters.