Train to Busan Remake Hires Director, James Wan to Produce

The hit South Korean zombie movie Train to Busan was released to critical acclaim in 2016 five years later an American remake of the movie just take a major step forward by hiring its director. Deadline reports that Indonesian filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto has been tapped to helm the English-language version of the movie which has The Conjuring and Saw filmmaker James Wan attached as producer. Tjahjanto’s previous credits include a litany of cult horror and action titles (cementing his resume for Train to Busan pretty firmly) such as Macabre, Killers, Headshot, Netflix’s The Night Comes for Us, Shudder’s May the Devil Take You Too, and the V/H/S 2 segment “Safe Haven.”

Screenwriter Gary Dauberman, known for penning the two Stephen King’s IT movies and Conjuring Universe films like The Nun and Annabelle Comes Home, will adapt the script for the original. The original Train to Busan tells the story of survivors escaping a deadly zombie plague while on a high speed train to the metropolitan city in South Korea, revealing twists and turns along the way as they fight the infected and try to make stops on the rail lines. What hasn’t yet been announced is how the American version of the story will be titled so we don’t yet know where this theoretical train will be headed. Baltimore? Boston? Birmingham? A non-B city? It’s anyone’s guess.

When asked in a previous interview if they’d come up with a “good reason” to remake the movie in America, Dauberman told SlashFilm: “Yes. I won’t get more into that but that’s one of those movies that’s so f-ing great, it’s so well done, you don’t want to do anything that’s going to be less than. I think we’re certainly getting there. It feels like there’s a reason to make the American version without ruining the experience of the original.”

Today’s news of the American Train to Busan remake comes off the heels of the trailer for Mortal Kombat, another highly anticipated feature film from New Line Cinema that has Wan and Dauberman acting as producers. The reaction to that movie has been through the roof in the time since though, perhaps signaling the winning combo of Wan’s Atomic Monster, Dauberman, and New Line.

South Korean filmmaker Sang-Ho Yeon was the matermind behind the original Train to Busan, directing the film along with an animated prequel as well as last year’s follow-up movie, Train to Busan: Peninsula.