Neon has acquired North American rights to “No Other Choice,” the next film from South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook, the distributor announced Wednesday.
Park’s 12th feature has been in the works for quite some time and only wrapped production in January, but we referred to the film nevertheless as a snub for the Cannes lineup in May (where he previously won Best Director for “Decision to Leave” in 2022), but a source tells IndieWire the film is expected to now premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
“No Other Choice” stars Lee Byung-hun, best known as the villain in “Squid Game,” and Son Ye-jin (“The Last Princess”) as a husband and wife. After the husband is abruptly laid off by the paper company where he worked tirelessly for many years, he grows increasingly desperate in his hunt for new work. It’s based on a 1997 novel by Donald Westlake called “The Ax,” and the film has been described as a dark comedy from the director known for “Decision to Leave,” “Oldboy,” “The Handmaiden,” and the HBO series “The Sympathizer.”
Related Stories
The film’s ensemble cast also includes Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, Cha Seung-won, and Yoo Yeon-seok. “No Other Choice” is produced by Park Chan-wook and Back Jisun of Moho Film and Michèle Ray Gavras and Alexandre Gavras of KG Production, and executive produced by Miky Lee of CJ Group. CJ ENM financed the project, which is currently in post-production.
Neon founder Tom Quinn, while a guest on IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast at Cannes, gushed about the chance to potentially work with Park and discussed why the distributor jumped at the opportunity to acquire and re-release Park’s seminal revenge film, “Oldboy,” into theaters in 2023, as well as a limited deluxe edition 4K UHD Blu-ray. “No Other Choice,” though, is the first new collaboration between Neon and Park, but a reunion between Neon and Korean financier CJ ENM, which also worked on “Parasite.”
The deal was negotiated by Jason Wald on behalf of NEON with Namyoung Kim at CJ ENM.
Park is represented by WME, Industry Entertainment, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush, Kaller, Gellman, Meigs & Fox. Lee is represented by UTA, BH Entertainment Co. Ltd., and McKuin Frankel Whitehead. Son is represented by MSTeam Entertainment.
