Given that he's largely stuck to wildly original material (or fascinating adaptations including his most recent film, Poor Things), the notion of Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos pivoting to a remake is an intriguing one, despite the alarm bells it might set howling online. According to Variety, the director is now aboard a new version of South Korean fantasy comedy Save The Green Planet.
Director Joon-Hwan Jang's 2003 debut follows Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun), who comes to believe that a number of Korean leaders and top business types are secretly reptilian aliens driving an invasion of his beloved planet Earth. When he abducts several and absconds with them to a basement command centre to start prying information from their scaly brains, the authorities hire a skilled private detective to track him and his victims down. All the while, Byeong-gu's devoted girlfriend aids his mission, even as she worries his crusade is born out of his traumatic childhood.
Jang himself was attached to a remake back in 2020, with Succession and The Menu writer Will Tracy cranking out a script. Whether Lanthimos – who could certainly do something entertaining with the concept — works from that screenplay or commissions his own, remains to be seen.
After all, don't forget that this is a man who brought a film about a woman with a baby's brain learning about the world to awards glory and box office success (with 11 Oscar nominations and five BAFTA trophies in the bag last night) If there's anyone that can make it work, in Lanthimos we trust. His next film, Kinds Of Kindness (a reunion with Poor Things' Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley) is in post-production, and will likely arrive later this year.