Everything to Know About the Parasite HBO Series From Bong Joon Ho

Bong Joon Ho‘s Parasite was absolutely unstoppable at the 92nd Academy Awards. The South Korean film won top honors at the 2020 Oscars, nabbing the coveted Best Picture in addition to its wins for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature. Parasite‘s Oscars sweep capped off the film’s already impressive awards season run, which included winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, two BAFTAs, and many, many other festival prizes.

Critics could not get enough of this deeply dark comedy, and the good news for Parasite fans is that there might still be more to come from this story. HBO is in talks to adapt the 2019 film as a limited series.

Here’s everything we know about that potential Parasite show so far.

Bong Joon Ho will return. Parasite wouldn’t be Parasite without Bong Joon Ho, and, luckily, the writer-director himself will be on board to oversee the series. He and Succession producer Adam McKay will work together to develop the potential miniseries as co-executive producers.

It’s expected to be in English. Parasite the film is a Korean-language thrill ride that is well worth, in Bong’s words, “overcoming the one-inch barrier of subtitles.” Per The Hollywood Reporter, HBO’s limited series is expected to be in English. However, a week after the potential series was announced, Deadline reported that Bong was “open to discussions as to whether the series will be in English or Korean,” so that might not be set in stone.

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It will run for about six hours. Shortly after the potential Parasite limited series was announced, Bong Joon Ho shared some key details about what to expect from this adaptation. In particular, the auteur revealed that Parasite‘s two-hour runtime does not incorporate all of the ideas he had for the story and that he would need about four more hours of additional screen time to deliver the full narrative. He told The Wrap in January, “I just couldn’t include all those ideas in the two-hour running time of the film, so they’re all stored in my iPad and my goal with this limited series is to create a six-hour-long film.”

We already know some scenes that will be extended. In addition to revealing the approximate runtime of the Parasite series, Bong Joon Ho also pointed to a few specific elements of the movie that could be expanded in the adaptation. [Minor spoilers to follow.] “When the original housekeeper Mun Gwang (Lee Jung Eun) comes back in the late night, something happened to her face. Even her husband asked about it but she never answered,” he told The Wrap. “I know why she had the bruises on her face. I have a story for that, and aside from that, why does she know the existence of this bunker? What relationship does she have with that architect to know of this bunker? So I have all these hidden stories that I have stored.”

There’s been no word yet on whether the original cast will return. Although the movie’s leads — Choi Woo-shik, Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin, and Park So-dam — were a key part of Parasite‘s success, it is not clear at this time whether they will reprise their roles as members of the Kim family in the Parasite limited series.

Parasite is currently available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video.

Choi Woo-sik, Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin, and Park So-dam, ParasitePhoto: NEON CJ Entertainment