US Studio to Shoot Feature in Seoul

Fox Atomic, a division of Fox Searchlight, will be the first of the Hollywood studios to produce a movie in South Korea. In an announcement last Sunday in Seoul, Roy Lee, the project's producer, said the as-yet-untitled $12 – 15 million feature would star actor Channing Tatum and be shot 75 – 90% in Seoul.

Lee is known as a force behind many successful remakes of Asian films including The Grudge (from Japan), The Lake House (Korea's Il Mare), and the upcoming Shutter (Thailand.) Tatum has starred in the 2006 comedy She's the Man and the upcoming antiwar film Stop Loss.

The project will be entirely financed by Fox Atomic, while Lee of Vertigo Entertainment and Bill Choi and Peter Kieman of Management 360 will team with an as-yet-unnamed Korean production company for the project. Lee insists they will also hire a Korean director and that most of the cast will be Korean.

While not a remake, the project is similar in set-up to Ridley Scott's 1989 noir, Black Rain. The story will revolve around a young American police detective (Tatum) going to Seoul to team up with a Korean gangster in order to enter the Korean underworld. The film will be edited in two different versions, one emphasizing the Tatum character for US release, and one emphasizing the gangster for release in Korea.

The story was written by Korean-American writer Doug Jung ("Confidence") and Lee expects the script to be completed within 4 to 6 weeks of the end of the WGA strike.

Nigel D'Sa (KOFIC)

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