Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite,” everyone’s favorite upstairs/downstairs/half-basement thriller is an Oscar frontrunner and will soon find an even wider audience as it’s transformed into an HBO series by the filmmaker and “Succession” executive producer Adam McKay. Now Bong, who is on the awards circuit for the film, has revealed a few more details to the Hollywood Reporter, which should excite even those who think this upcoming series is a terrible idea.
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“With cinema, you’re limited to a two-hour running time. But there were so many stories that I thought of that could happen in between the sequences you see in the film, and some background stories for each character,” Bong told The Hollywood Reporter, giving an idea of how the story of the film will be expanded for television. He continued: “I really wanted to explore those ideas freely with a five- or six-hour film. You know, with Bergman‘s ‘Fanny and Alexander,’ there’s a theatrical version and there’s a TV version. So with the TV series for ‘Parasite,’ I think we’ll be able to create a high-quality, expanded film.”
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While many details of this proposed series remain undefined (chiefly: will it be in English?), these new comments at least give an idea of what Bong and McKay will be going for with this expanded adaptation. And before you dismiss this TV series version of “Parasite” as being a horrible, creatively bankrupt idea, think about what HBO just did with “Watchmen,” another idea that could have been potentially disastrous and turned out to be a miraculous achievement.