'Exhuma'

Source: Showbox and Pinetown Production

‘Exhuma’

South Korea’s Showbox has sold runaway box office hit Exhuma to a raft of key territories, including the US, UK and across Asia.

The supernatural thriller has been snapped up for North America (Well Go USA), the UK, Australia and New Zealand (K-Movie Entertainment UK), German-speaking Europe and Benelux (Splendid), Japan (Kadokawa Kplus), Latin America (Cine Canibal), Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Philippines (Purple Plan), Indian subcontinent (Impact Films), Taiwan (MovieCloud), CIS and the Baltics (Prime Time Media), Hong Kong and Macau (Edko Films), Vietnam (Mocking Bird) and Mongolia (Filmbridge).

It marks the first film in five years from Jang Jae-hyun, director of Svaha: The Sixth Finger and The Priests, and stars Choi Min-sik of Disney+ series Big Bet, Roaring Currents and Oldboy; and Kim Go-eun of TV’s Little Women. The cast also includes Yoo Hai-jin (The Night Owl) and Lee Do-hyun (Netflix’s The Glory).

The story follows a wealthy family in Los Angeles who experience paranormal events and summon a shamanic duo to save their newborn baby. After sensing a dark ancestor’s shadow, they call in a geomancer and mortician to set about exhuming a grave in Korea — but unleash a malevolent force.

After just three weeks on release, it has taken nearly $60m and recorded more than 8 million admissions, comfortably ranking as the biggest film of the year in South Korea to date. The film received its world premiere at the Berlinale last month, where it played in the festival’s Forum strand.

It was produced by Showbox and Pinetown Production in association with MCMC.