So we know Hollywood had a thing for remaking international flicks right? Specifically I’m talking about Korean films. Now Hollywood is digging the whole ‘teen horror’ thing. I got it… let’s combine the two! Oh boy…
That’s the impression I get from this article over at Variety that has Imprint Entertainment getting ready to remake Ahn Byung-ki’s THE PHONE. How have I come to this assumption? Well because Imprint are the ones behind flicks like TWILIGHT and NEW MOON. Ouch…
The original film, which starred Ha Ji-won (below), is basically about a cell phone number whose owners are killed in mysterious circumstances. Haven’t we seen this shite before? Here’s a much more detailed synopsis: After writing a series of articles about pedophilia, the journalist Ji-won receives threatening calls on her cellular and she changes her number. Her close friend Ho-jung and her husband Chang-hoon invite Ji-won to move to their house in Bang Bae that is empty and closed. When the young daughter of her friends Young-Su answers a phone call in her mobile phone, the girl screams and changes her behavior, feeling a great attraction for her father and rejecting her mother. Meanwhile Ji-won receives weird phone calls and sees and listens to a teenager playing Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” on the piano. After investigating her phone number, Ji-won discovers that the original owner of the number, Jin-hee, had vanished and the two next owners of the number have mysteriously died in unusual circumstances. Her further investigation about Jin-hee discloses that the teenager was absolutely disturbed with her obsessive love for a man that had broken the relationship with her, and later she unravels dark and tragic secrets about the fate of Jin-hee.
Imprint Entertainment have tapped South Korea’s Mirovision with the task of remaking the film, already hiring Ahn Byung-ki to helm the remake. The original’s director helming it’s remake. Is this a good thing or a bad thing folks? Anyone out there see THE PHONE? Is it worth remaking? With Imprint behind this chances are it’ll be an easy PG-13 aimed at the tween audience. Shame.
THE PHONE remake has a budget of $10 Million and will shoot during the first half of 2010 in Seoul, South Korea. It’ll have both Korean and American cast and is looking at a late 2010 release. I’m sure more details on THE PHONE will be popping up soon so be sure to keep it here for updates.
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