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Bong Joon Ho will start detailed screenwriting on a slate of crime and horror projects next year once his animated feature “Ally” is complete, the Oscar-winning Korean filmmaker tells Variety ahead of receiving the Stella
della Mole Award at Torino’s Museo Nazionale del Cinema on Wednesday.
Asked about the Seoul subway-set horror film he has previously discussed, Bong says: “Yeah, it’s still in my head. Now I have two or three stories. I’ve always been a huge fan of crime stories and dark horror action movies.” The ideas have been circling for years, and he intends to go back to those genres after “Ally.”
“Actually, I’m in the middle of post-production. Even last night I had a Zoom call with my crew members in Seoul and London,” Bong says of the animation, which has teams in Korea, the U.K., Montreal and Mumbai. He wrapped additional dubbing and voice recording last month, and expects the film to be fully finished around late January or February 2027.
The distributors have yet to set a date but are looking at June, July or August — a window Bong suggests fits a film set entirely against a deep blue ocean.
“Sundance or Berlin is possible, and also Cannes. But I don’t know, it all depends on the release strategy of the distributors,” Bong says of a possible festival premiere, adding that he hopes to present the film to a festival audience.
Pathé will release “Ally” in France, Benelux, Switzerland and West Africa, and Neon has North America. South Korea, Vietnam, Turkey and Indonesia go to CJ and Penture. Pathé is also handling international sales outside Japan, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which CJ and Penture are selling.
Looking back across his career, Bong compares the present moment to half-time in a soccer match and says he hopes to keep making films for another 25 years. “At that time I was a director who had made two films. Now I’m a director who has made eight films,” he says of his first visit to Torino.
That visit came in 2003, when “Memories of Murder” won the Torino Film Festival’s audience prize and its screenplay award. Bong says he is particularly excited to meet Torino audiences again, given that the earlier prize was decided by public vote.
On the Korean industry’s post-pandemic box office recovery in the first half of 2026, Bong says he is firmly convinced that cinemas will never vanish, since watching a film with a packed house offers something that solo streaming at home cannot. He notes that this year’s local theatrical hits spanned very different genres and filmmakers. “It was a very good and optimistic sign. So, yeah, we are expecting something more next year,” he says.
He sees streaming and theatrical as partners that can grow together rather than rivals. “Actually, South Korea was the country that set up a whole high-speed internet system at a very early stage, around the late 1990s. So it was very helpful and a very good chance for Korea,” Bong says.
In the years since “Parasite,” Bong believes Korean creators have become more ambitious, citing the influence of that film and “Squid Game.” “But at the same time, the people in the industry, my fellow filmmakers, are also very grounded,” he says.
“Parasite” won the Palme d’Or and went on to take four Academy Awards, including best picture — the first non-English-language film to win the top prize. Bong’s most recent film is “Mickey 17” (2025), starring Robert Pattinson.
The Torino event, curated by Marco Fallanca, begins at Cinema Massimo with the award presentation and a masterclass in conversation with Museo Nazionale del Cinema director Carlo Chatrian. Later, Bong will introduce a screening of “Parasite.” The evening also launches a full retrospective of his features.
