Hollywood buys rights to remake ‘New World’

Korean gangster film “New World” will have a Hollywood remake, according to the film’s Korean distributor Next Entertainment World.

NEW said it recently signed a deal with Vertigo Entertainment, a production company located in Beverly Hills, California, to create the remake. The thriller was released in North America in late March, following its Korean release in February.

Screenwriter Will Fetters, who is working on Clint Eastwood’s next project “A Star is Born,” will be writing the script, NEW said.

Vertigo Entertainment, run by Korean-American film producer Roy Lee, is also in charge of producing American remakes of Park Chan-wook’s famous 2003 thriller “Oldboy” and Na Hong-jin’s 2008 film “The Chaser.”

The remake of “Oldboy,” directed by “Do the Right Thing” and “Love & Basketball” director Spike Lee, is scheduled to be released in North America in October of this year.

The second piece directed by noted screenwriter Park Hoon-jung (“I Saw the Devil,” “The Unjust”), “New World” is an engaging noir about a police detective (Lee Jung-jae) who conducts an undercover investigation into Gold Moon ― one of the biggest crime organizations in the country.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)