Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite is getting a television adaptation and the award-winning writer-director revealed the first details about the series during his career-spanning masterclass at the Cannes Film Festival this week. When news first broke about HBO’s Parasite series, people were understandably concerned that HBO was just Americanizing the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture. Bong’s Oscar wins were groundbreaking, making him the first South Korean director to win Best Director.
IndieWire reported that the director called the Parasite series a “black comedy” and confirmed at the festival that he is a producer on the project, but still “working in close cooperation with screenwriter Adam McKay.” McKay has recently written and directed The Big Short and Vice, and is also a producer on Succession, so it's clear he knows a thing or two about social commentaries.
While the HBO series is an adaptation of Parasite, it is an original story, not a remake, as McKay confirmed back in April. Bong sounds optimistic about what he and McKay are creating, saying, “[The television series] will be something of great genius, I hope. I worked with Adam McKay and he’s figuring out the scenario. We’re going to do it in the United States.” Hopefully, McKay is utilizing all of the notes Bong had from the original script.
The Parasite series was not the only project teased during the “Rendez-vous with…” series at Cannes. Bong revealed that his previously reported animated project was inspired by pictures of sea monsters in a French scientific book that his wife brought home. “The underwater colors are absolutely splendid,” Bong said, of Claire Nouvian’s The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss, which inspired the animated feature. It sounds like we may have to wait a while to see it, as Bong stated that it would likely come out in 2025 or 2026.
Early rumors suggested that Mark Ruffalo was being considered for a lead role in the Parasite series, but there has been no official word yet on casting, or when we will see the Parasite series.