Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae is set to star in a spin-off from director Hong Won-chan’s South Korean action thriller Deliver Us From Evil, produced as a global OTT series.
Tentatively titled Ray, after Lee’s vengeful assassin character in the 2020 film, the series is to be co-produced by Hive Media Corp, which produced the feature, and Artist Studio, which produced Lee’s directorial debut Hunt as well as Netflix sci-fi series The Silent Sea.
The original crime action film, starring Hwang Jung-min and Lee, was released in August 2020 and took $33.8m at the box office from 4.35 million admissions in the first summer of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The series will follow Ray, a mysterious Korean killer from Japan who tracks down Hwang’s character in Deliver Us From Evil to take brutal revenge. The series will range from the titular character’s origins to the battles he wages with villains around the world who become his targets.
Lee will reprise his role and will be producing the series, which is at treatment stage. He is also considering directing episodes.
Hong is attached as creator. Further talent attached includes scriptwriter Kim Bo-Tong, whose credits include Netflix hit D.P.; commercials director Shin Won-seok; and cinematographer Hong Kyung Pyo, who shot Deliver Us From Evil as well as myriad others including Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker.
Leading Korean studio CJ ENM, which backed and distributed the original film, is also in talks with the production companies as to how it might collaborate on the series. In North America, the studio has the branded zone CJ ENM Picks on NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock, but it is yet to be known if this series will go to that platform.
The production companies announced today that the project is to start pre-production “in earnest” in 2023.
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