'Colony'

Courtesy of Showbox

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Korean studio Showbox has lined up distribution deals across more than 20 international territories for Colony, the new zombie thriller from Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho, the company announced Tuesday ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this Friday.

The action thriller — Yeon’s return to the zombie genre he helped reinvent globally with 2016’s breakthrough hit Train to Busan — has gone to Well Go USA in North America, StudioCanal in the U.K., Gaga Corporation in Japan, ARP Sélection in France, and Plaion Pictures in Germany and Italy. Showbox also closed deals for Australia and New Zealand (K-Movie Entertainment UK), Latin America (BF Distribution), Scandinavia (Mis Label), Spain (Energia), the CIS and Baltics (The World Pictures), Poland (Media4Fun), Turkey (Mars), Hong Kong (Edko Films), Taiwan (MovieCloud), Indonesia (PT Primacinema Multimedia), the Philippines (Pioneer Films), India (Multivision Multimedia), Thailand (Sahamongkolfilm International), Mongolia (Izagur Media) and broader Southeast Asia (Purple Plan).

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Last Call on the Croisette

Colony will screen at the Palais on Friday, May 15 in the Cannes Midnight Screenings section, out of competition. The slot is a homecoming for Yeon: Train to Busan also debuted in the Midnight strand in 2016, the launch pad for what became the global breakout and made him one of his country’s most prolific directors of screens large and small.

‘Colony’

Courtesy of Showbox

Gianna Jun (Kingdom: Ashin of the North, Assassination) stars as Se-jeong, a biotechnology professor attending an industry conference when a rapidly mutating virus is released, plunging the venue into chaos as the infected begin to transform and the authorities seal the building. The ensemble includes Koo Kyo-hwan (Escape, Netflix’s Parasyte: The Grey), Ji Chang-wook (Revolver, The Worst of Evil), Shin Hyun-been (The Ugly, Reborn Rich), Kim Shin-rock (Hellbound, Sweet Home) and Go Soo (Parole Examiner Lee, The Fortress). Yeon and the principal cast will walk the red carpet for the premiere.

Yeon co-wrote the screenplay with frequent collaborator Choi Gyu-seok. The film is produced by Wowpoint and Smilegate in association with Midnight Studio, with Showbox presenting. The reported production budget is roughly $12 million, modest by Hollywood tentpole standards but on the high end for a Korean genre feature.

Yeon first emerged as an animator, with the dark allegories The King of Pigs (2011) and The Fake (2013), before making the leap to live action in 2016 — the year Train to Busan premiered alongside its animated companion film Seoul Station. He followed with the live-action sequel Peninsula (2020), released during the pandemic, before pivoting to streaming series. The supernatural Netflix series Hellbound debuted in November 2021 and climbed to the streamer’s global No. 1 spot within a day of launch. He’s released several series and feature projects since.

Colony opens in South Korea on May 21, with Well Go USA targeting a late-August release in North American theaters.

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