Hollywood remake of South Korean movie Train to Busan gets a director

Train to Busan
(Image credit: Next Entertainment World)

South Korean blockbuster Train to Busan is getting a Hollywood remake, and the project now has a director. Timo Tjahjanto is set to helm the movie for the studio New Line, Deadline reports.

Released in 2016, the original movie is a zombie apocalypse thriller directed by Yeon Sang-ho. It mostly takes place on – you guessed it – a train going from Seoul to Busan as a chemical leak at a biotech plant causes a zombie outbreak to hit the country. When an infected woman slips onto the train undetected before it leaves the station, the lives of all the passengers on board are suddenly at risk. The movie stars Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, and Jung Yu-mi. A sequel dealing with the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, Peninsula, was released in 2020. 

Tjahjanto recently directed the Netflix action thriller The Night Comes for Us and made his name as one half of the Mo Brothers with Kimo Stamboel, the pair directing cult Indonesian horror and action movies like Macabre and Killers. This will be Tjahjanto's first Hollywood feature.

Aquaman director James Wan is one of the remake's producers, along with Gary Dauberman. Wan is also producing the upcoming Mortal Kombat movie, which is based on the video game of the same name. Daubman, meanwhile, has penned several movies for New Line including It and It Chapter Two. The pair are set to work together again on an upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's novel Salem’s Lot, with Dauberman writing and directing and Wan producing.

While we wait for the Train to Busan remake to hit the big screen, check out our list of the best horror movies of all time.

Entertainment Writer

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.