Feb 13, 2024

Pon Joon-ho, director of "Parasite," to begin production of an animated film by the end of the year.

Oscar-winning director Pon Joon-ho is set to begin work on an untitled animated feature later this year, according to South Korean reports.

According to South Korea's Daum, Pon Joon-ho has already completed post-production on his live-action film "Mickey 17" in the U.S. and has begun work on an animated film in South Korea.

Bong's longtime VFX studio, 4th Creative Party, will handle animation for the upcoming animated feature. The studio has produced VFX for "Stalker," "Snowpiercer," and "Okja," and previously worked on "Harlock": in Japan, the flashy CG feature "Space Pirate Harlock" was produced by AZ Works and Toei Animation Studio.

Vonn has been working on the script for this film since 2018. Little plot information is available, but it is known that the story will focus on the relationship between humans and marine life.

Daum reports that Bong's animated film has a budget of roughly 70 billion won ($52.6 million), making it the most expensive Korean film of all time. The previous record holder was Bong's own Okja, which reportedly had a budget of $50 million; $52.6 million may not be in line with the budgets of most American studio feature films, but it is an unheard of amount for an animated film almost anywhere in the world. The film was nominated for an Academy Award this year for "Robots". This year's Oscar-nominated "Robot's Dream" had a budget of only $6 million.

Also, Daum reports that Sony Pictures is in talks to acquire worldwide distribution rights for the film outside of Korea, moving it to Bonn's longtime distributor, CJ ENM.