EW has announced that director James Wan will be remaking the Korean hit movie Train to Busan.
The original film premiered in 2016 at the Cannes Film Festival. San-ho Yeon directed the original movie, which became a monster hit in South Korea, grossing $85 million overseas, but only $2 million in the U.S. However, it seems the movie became an eventual sensation anyway as it will be remade for a Western audience.
The movie will probably be in good hands as James Wan has had several successful ventures. You’ll probably know him for his Conjuring Universe (The Conjuring 1 + 2, Annabelle, Annabelle Creation and The Nun) and the gory Saw movies. Adding this remake to his list, it seems that it will be a very busy period for Wan. 
While Wan has just finished directing Aquaman, which will premiere soon, the director will be extending on the DC Universe and create a movie with the antihero Swamp Thing. Accompanied by a remake of Arachnophobia, Stephen King’s Tommyknockers, and The Conjuring’s sequel, Wan has us waiting eagerly in our chairs.
The film revolves around Seok-woo, performed by popular Korean actor Gong Yoo, who is a divorced fund manager, a workaholic and absentee father to his young daughter Su-an. The movie starts off with his daughter wishing for her father to take her to Busan to see her mother for her birthday. That’s when all hell breaks loose.
James Wan will be teaming up with writer Gary Dauberman, who has movies such as The Nun, It and its sequel under his belt. Next to this, the director’s own company Atomic Monster will producing the movie.
Hopefully, Wan will be able to recreate the status the Korean movie has reached. It’s not the first time that a remake of an Asian movie has been disappointing to say the least.
The danger of taking the wrong turn is quite big as zombie movies, and especially American productions, tend to revolve solely around gore and chaos. But what the original movie did so well was create a product that had the perfect blend of disaster movie, zombie horror and family values. This edge of emotional investment had the consequence of the audience continuously being glued to the screen.
Let’s hope that James Wan is able to live up to the job. But seeing as he’s able to inject elements of family values and emotional turbulence in most of his movies, even the gruesome Saw movies, it might even be possible.
Stay tuned for more Aussie Gossip!
