Over the last several years of cinema it sometimes seems like Ari Aster and Yorgos Lanthimos are in a competition for who can make the darkest, weirdest movie. But what happens when the two modern auteurs come together to maximize their joint slay? Bugonia, the new film produced by Aster, directed by Lanthimos, and starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. Based on the teaser, it is indeed going to be dark and weird, with the humorous edge typical of Lanthimos’ work.
Based on the Korean classic Save The Green Planet and adapted by The Menu screenwriter Will Tracy, Bugonia follows “Two conspiracy obsessed young men” (played by Plemons and Aidan Delbis) who “kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.” Stone plays the girlboss She-E-O who sips out of a Stanley tumbler and graces the cover of magazines like Time and Forbes. It looks like she needs better security, though, as the guys are able to grab her right from her gorgeous modern home and bring her back to their tinfoil-covered lair. The film also stars comedian Stavros Halkias and Alicia Silverstone (who previously appeared in Lanthimos’ The Killing Of A Sacred Deer).
Producer Jerry Kyoungboum Ko (Past Lives), whose company CJ Entertainment is behind Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 original, told The Hollywood Reporter that the production team believed Save The Green Planet “was ahead of its time.” They thought it could be adapted as an indie flick, “but as we traveled around Hollywood, we realized that there were many hidden fans of the original film,” he said. “I happened to be in L.A. and saw Ari Aster moderating a screening of Save the Green Planet at a theater, so I reached out to him and asked him to be a part of the production. So he came on board as a producer. Then Will Tracy, a screenwriter of Succession, came on board and wrote the story. The buzz started to build from then on.”
He added, “We started the project with the intention of reviving director Jang’s sense of imagination, which was ahead of its time and was not fully appreciated 20 years ago. The film developed into a bigger movie than we initially thought. By getting people on our side who understood the film’s potential, we were able to create buzz.” Bugonia will have a limited engagement premiere on October 24 before opening wide on October 31.
