After his stunning Oscar
sweep, how does director
BONG JOON-HO follow up
Parasite? He has a few plans
WHAT DO YOU do after winning four Oscars
in one of the biggest shocks in Academy Awards
history? “I will drink until next morning,”
Bong Joon-ho said while accepting his Best
Director gong (he also picked up Best Picture,
Best Original Screenplay and Best International
Film) for Parasite at the ceremony in LA earlier
this year. But Bong has post- Oscar plans beyond
boozing. As he revealed to Empire, the fi lmmaker
has a string of movies already in development.
“It’s confi dential, but what I can tell you
is that it’s half-located in London,” the auteur
told us before his Oscars win, discussing one of
these next projects: an English-language drama
based on a news story that circulated in 2016.
Bong wasn’t willing to be drawn on story details,
but did reveal that he’s working on it at the same
time as a Korean-language movie. “I’ll have
to come over for a cup of coff ee while I’m in
London,” he laughed. (The UK offi ce stocked up
on Nescafé, just in case.)
Ever the genre-bender, the director is also
pondering a surreal-sounding foray into an area
he hasn’t tackled yet. “I would love to make
a musical,” he continued. “Characters would
begin singing, then think, ‘Oh my God, fuck
this, this is too cheesy,’ and stop suddenly,” he
laughed, miming someone snapping abruptly out
of a spell. “There are amazing musical fi lms, like
Singing In The Rain. But when I watch them,
I feel very embarrassed and start blushing.
So it would have to be...diff erent.”You’d expect nothing less from Bong, whose
MO has always been to fi nd the unexpected. One
thing is for sure: it’s unlikely that Oscar success
will change his plans too much.
Having roared to the unlikeliest of victories
in February, Bong can now count himself a
household name, with Hollywood his oyster.
Yet throughout the awards season, he gave
the impression of a modest, unshowy man,
gently bemused by the endless pageantry
and schmoozing.
It was not his fi rst experience with
Tinseltown, of course. He had already fl irted
with the American fi lm industry earlier in his
career, and decided he was better off operating
on its fringes.
His tussles with Harvey Weinstein on his
2013 feature Snowpiercer, leading to a botched
release, are well-documented. Try Googling
“Bong ’s fi sherman dad” for one such tale. Would
you come back for more after an experience like
that? Probably not.
He does love American cinema, of course: he
beamed while recounting hearing the news his
childhood hero Steven Spielberg had attended
a screening of his 2017 eco-drama Okja, and
praised Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino
as heroes from the Oscar stage.
And he’ll still have one foot in Hollywood:
he is executive-producing the TV remake of
Snowpiercer (“I visited the set in Vancouver,”
he said. “Which was great. But I’m not really
involved”), and is also producing a TV spin-off
of Parasite for HBO, with The Big Short director
Adam McKay producing, and Mark Ruff alo
circling a role.
However, Bong sounded most elated while
teasing projects that sound in a similar vein to
Parasite: raw, groundbreaking and genreless.
Expect more of the same, in the very best way.
AL HORNERTop to bottom: Bong Joon-ho directs on the set
of Parasite; Choi Woo-sik and Park So-dam in the
award-winning fi lm; Bong celebrates his big night
at the Oscars.Bong’s next move
No. / 6
PREVIEW