Netflix has made another big feature film acquisition, and this time, it is joining forces with one of Korea’s brightest filmmakers. Bong Joon-ho, whose post-apocalyptic thriller Snowpiercer emerged as a surprise hit last year, will direct Okja, a movie that will be produced by Brad Pitt‘s Plan B Entertainment and financed by Netflix.
Okja, like Snowpiercer will feature a cast of both Korean and American actors. The protagonist will be a Korean girl who befriends a strange animal. Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Bill Nighy, Kelly Macdonald, and Tilda Swinton (who also showed up in Snowpiercer) are all slated to appear.
Netflix is making a sizable investment in Okja, which has a budget in the $50 million range. They are also giving Joon-ho creative freedom, which the director cited as one of the streaming video platform’s strongest selling points. “It really is a fantastic opportunity for me as a filmmaker,” he said. “For Okja, I needed a bigger budget than I had for Snowpiercer and also complete creative freedom. Netflix offered me the two conditions that are difficult to have in hand simultaneously.”
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In return, Netflix gets another opportunity to cater to the Asian audiences it has recently coveted. Several of its other projects, including Marco Polo and a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, appeal to viewers in the Far East.
While no formal release date for Okja has been announced, it will begin filming late in 2016 and will arrive the following year, according to Deadline. As it did with Beasts of No Nation, Netflix will likely distribute Okja online at the same time as the film’s theatrical release.
