With his South Korean brethren delivering their Hollywood debuts earlier next year, as Kim Ji-woon‘s The Last Stand arrives in January and Park Chan-wook‘s Stoker lands in March, it’s with great joy we have distribution news on Bong Joon-ho‘s English-language debut. The Host and Mother helmer completed production last year on Snowpiercer, a futuristic thriller based on the French graphic novel La Transperceneige and now we’ve got news out of AFM on when we may see it.
According to Deadline, The Weinstein Company have picked up the distribution rights for the film which follows a group of people on a train without a final destination, struggling to survive after the end of the world brings on a cataclysmic ice age. Starring Chris Evans, Ed Harris, Octavia Spencer, John Hurt, Jamie Bell, Tilda Swinton and Song-Kang-ho, no firm release has been set but inside sources say that a wide summer 2013 is “likely.” Considering the distributor has no major films set for that time period, we can only hope this is true — I could even see a Cannes debut before said release. Stay tuned for updates as they arrive for one of our most-anticipated films of next year.
Update: The acquisition has been confirmed via a press release, which you can read below:
New York, NY – November 12, 2012 – The Weinstein Company (TWC) announced today they have acquired rights for the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa to Bong Joon Ho’s upcoming post-apocalyptic action thriller, SNOWPIERCER. The film presented by CJ Entertainment is a Moho Film, Opus Pictures, and CJ Entertainment production (producers Park Chan-wook, Lee Tae Hun, Jeong Tae-sung, and executive producer Miky Lee). The story, adapted by Bong and Kelly Masterson, is based off the French graphic novel, Le Transperceneige.
The film stars Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner and Alison Pill.
SNOWPIERCER is set in a future where, after a failed experiment to stop global warming, an Ice Age kills off all life on the planet except for the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine. A class system evolves on the train but a revolution brews.
“SNOWPIERCER is the amazing vision of Bong Joon Ho. With a stellar cast led by Chris Evans, we look forward to bringing this action-packed thriller to audiences worldwide,” said Harvey Weinstein. “We could not be more excited to partner with CJ Entertainment on this project.”
“We know SNOWPIERCER is in great hands with TWC and Harvey Weinstein in particular, who has a legendary eye for exciting new cinema. Our relationship with Director Bong Joon Ho started back in 2002 with MEMORIES OF MURDER and we are now thrilled to present him to a worldwide audience,” said Jeong Tae-sung, President of CJ Entertainment.
The deal was negotiated by TWC COO David Glasser, Dan Guando, SVP Acquisitions, and Michal Podell Steinberg, SVP Business and Legal Affairs and Acquisitions; and CJ Entertainment Producer Steven Nam, Co-producer Francis Chung, WME Global Alexis Garcia and Steve Saltzman of Loeb & Loeb.
Are you looking forward to Bong Joon-ho’s next film?