Yorgos Lanthimos Drops Mind-Bending Bugonia Trailer as Emma Stone Leads a Wicked Sci-Fi Black Comedy

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone are teaming up again, and this time they are getting weird on purpose. The movie is called 'Bugonia' — a remake of the South Korean cult oddity 'Save the Green Planet' — and a new trailer just landed. Supposedly the final one. We will see.

So what is 'Bugonia'?

It's a black comedy with a sci-fi fixation: two conspiracy-obsessed young guys abduct a high-powered CEO because they are convinced she is an alien gearing up to wipe out Earth. Stone stars, joined by Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone. Given Lanthimos and Stone's track record ('The Favourite', 'Poor Things', 'Kinds of Kindness'), this is very much their brand of off-kilter.

Where this came from

'Bugonia' reimagines Joon-hwan Jang's 'Save the Green Planet', which is a genuinely eccentric black comedy. That film centers on Byun-gu, a bitter, paranoid beekeeper who is absolutely sure an alien invasion from Andromeda is days away. With the help of his tightrope-walker girlfriend, Sooni, he kidnaps Man-sik, a wealthy executive he believes is one of the aliens. Byun-gu downs amphetamines and tortures Man-sik to force him to contact the so-called Royal Prince and call off the apocalypse. The whole thing turns into a battle of wits and stubbornness: Man-sik insists he is human and tries to escape, and he recognizes Byun-gu as a disgruntled ex-employee whose mother is in a coma with a mysterious illness. That hints at a more personal motive, but Byun-gu keeps pushing, even if it might kill his captive. Meanwhile, a rumpled detective named Chu and his younger partner, Inspector Kim, start connecting this abduction to earlier cases that ended very badly.

Behind the scenes shuffle

When the remake was first announced over four years ago, original director Joon-hwan Jang was actually supposed to direct it too. Plans changed, and the film ended up in Lanthimos's hands. The script comes from Will Tracy, a writer on HBO's 'Succession' and 'Last Week Tonight with John Oliver' who also co-wrote 'The Menu' — which is a pretty perfect pedigree for a sharp, genre-bending dark comedy.

Production-wise, it is a crowded bench: Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe produce for Element Pictures; Miky Lee and Jerry Ko produce for CJ ENM; Emma Stone produces for Fruit Tree; Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen produce for Square Peg; and Lanthimos is producing as well. Inside baseball, sure, but it tells you how many heavy hitters want in on this one.

Dates, trailers, the whole rollout

• Release plan: special limited engagement in theaters on October 24, followed by a wide release on October 31.
• Trailer timeline: teaser a few months back, full trailer about a month ago, and now this new trailer that is being billed as the final one.
• Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, Alicia Silverstone.
• Writer: Will Tracy ('Succession', 'Last Week Tonight with John Oliver', 'The Menu').
• Producers: Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe (Element Pictures), Miky Lee and Jerry Ko (CJ ENM), Emma Stone (Fruit Tree), Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen (Square Peg), and Yorgos Lanthimos.
• Origin: remake of Joon-hwan Jang's 'Save the Green Planet'. Jang was initially attached to direct the remake but later handed it off to Lanthimos.

Bottom line: Lanthimos remaking one of the strangest, funniest Korean genre mash-ups of the 2000s sounds exactly like the sort of chaos he thrives on. The new trailer backs that up. If the word 'final' actually means anything in trailer-land, we are now in the home stretch.