Los Angeles-based Black Box Management and Seoul-based BH Entertainment have struck a strategic partnership, kicking off with a remake of the 2018 South Korean horror film Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum.
Directed by Jung Bum-shik and sold by Showbox to Well Go USA for North America, the original Gonjiam revolves around an online reality show that recruits a handful of people to explore the abandoned Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital.
“We are thankful to our friends at Showbox for putting their faith in us to develop Gonjiam for U.S. audiences. Korea has become a second home for us, and we are excited to help share the entertainment and culture that has captivated the world’s attention,” Black Box partners Mike Dill and Lowell Shapiro said in a statement.
Gonjiam generated $20 million in worldwide box office on a $2.2 million budget. “As Parasite has proven, the appetite for Korean content has never been higher. The partnership will further the exchange and development of Korean and U.S. adaptations, remakes and originals for both Korean and U.S. markets,” Charles Pak, head of international development at BH Entertainment, added in his own statement.
Besides Parasite becoming the first non-English-language movie to dominate the Academy Awards, other original South Korean properties to break out with U.S. audiences include The King of Mask Singer, which was recast by Fox as The Masked Singer, and Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer, remade as a just-launched TNT TV series that stars Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs.
Black Box reps filmmakers such as Gabriela Cowperthwaite (Blackfish) and Oscar-nominee Feras Fayyad (The Cave) and actors Jeremy Shada and Tone Bell.
