Parasite’s Bong Joon-ho says that he would love to make a musical

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

After walking away with Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Film, and Best Original Screenplay, PARASITE director/co-writer Bong Joon-ho can pretty much do whatever he wants, and one of the next genre he tackles could very well be a musical.

While speaking with Empire, Bong Joon-ho said, "I would love to make a musical. Characters would begin singing, then think, ‘Oh my God, f**k this, this is too cheesy,’ and stop suddenly. There are amazing musical films, like Singin’ In The Rain. But when I watch them, I feel very embarrassed and start blushing. So it would have to be… different." Suddenly, I'm very interested in what a Bong Joon-ho musical would look (and sound) like; could be just what we need to get through the current crisis.

While we still don't know all that much about what Bong Joon-ho's next feature-film will be, he is working on an adaptation of PARASITE for HBO with Adam McKay (VICE), and has said that the TV series will be able to include all the ideas he couldn't fit into the feature-film.

With Parasite, while I was writing the script I had so many more ideas I couldn’t convey into the two-hour running time of the film. I knew that if I had a longer running time, I would be able to tell these stories, and I that’s what I plan to talk about with Adam pretty soon.

Bong Joon-ho pointed to Ingmar Bergman's FANNY AND ALEXANDER as proof that an expanded feature-film could work on television. "Though I’m not very familiar with the TV industry, I really consider this limited series an expanded film that can delve deeper into the stories that didn’t make it into Parasite," Bong said. "Adam McKay and HBO have created the amazing show Succession, so they’re very reliable and amazing partners to have." As for whether the TV series will be in English or Korean, Bong Joon-ho told Variety that it hasn't been decided. "We’re still very much in the early stages," he said. "I’ll soon meet with Adam to talk about the set up. For now, a lot of things are open." It was revealed last month that Mark Ruffalo (AVENGERS: ENDGAME) was reportedly being eyed to star in the PARASITE adaptation.