Parasite TV show will be an original story, not a remake of the movie

(Image credit: CJ Entertainment)

Bong Joon-ho and Adam McKay's Parasite TV show for HBO is "chugging full speed ahead," according to McKay – and the director-producer has given a key update on the plot of the series.

"It’s an original series," McKay told MTV's Happy Sad Confused podcast. "It’s in the same universe as the feature, but it’s an original story that lives in that same world."

Pre-production on the series seems to be making good progress, with McKay adding: "We’re just having the best time. We’ve just staffed up with an incredible writers' room. I basically outlined the series with director Bong during the quarantine, with him overseeing."

Parasite follows a poor family who scheme to become employed by a wealthy family and infiltrate their household, with disastrous consequences. The movie cleaned up during the 2019 award season, winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes, Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, and four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

"All these key ideas accumulated from when I started writing the script," Bong told TheWrap last year when word of the TV show first got out. "I just couldn’t include all those ideas in the two-hour running time of the film, so they’re all stored in my iPad and my goal with this limited series is to create a six-hour-long film."

As well as Parasite, Bong has also directed Snowpiercer (which has also been adapted into a TV show), Okja, and The Host. McKay, meanwhile, has written and directed movies like Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Big Short, and Vice. On the small screen, he's an executive producer on HBO's award-winning series Succession.

While we wait for the Parasite series to arrive on HBO, make sure you've caught up on all the best TV shows of 2020 first.

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.