The Train To Busanis set to make a fairly hefty detour, as Deadline reports that the long-in-the-works American remake of Yeon Sang-Ho’s 2015 hit has apparently picked up a new title: Last Train To New York.
Which suggests that director Timo Tjahjanto—half of horror duo The Mo Brothers, and known for his work on the V/H/S franchise of anthology films—isn’t just doing an American remake of the South Korean blockbuster, but an American remake of the well-regarded zombie film, which threads critiques of class and economic disparity throughout its tale of passengers attempting to stay alive amidst a zombie apocalypse aboard a locomotive headed toward, well, wherever.
The film’s remake has been in the works since 2016, i.e., about a minute after the world noticed that Yeon had managed to pick up almost 100 million at the international box office off of a meager $8.5 million budget. (Zombie movies: Making a lot with a little since 1968.) News of the American-language remake has been met with a fairly hefty amount of skepticism from fans of the original, at least partially on account of the fact that you can, y’know, just go watch Train To Busan right now.
Tjahjanto, meanwhile, is wracking up the remake credits; news of the film’s title actually came as part of a whole other Deadline story, in which it was revealed that Tjahjanto would also be directing a new version of “Good for a Steven Seagal flick” action movie classic Under Siege. (Annoyingly, for our need for symmetry, Tjahjanto is not tackling Under Siege 2, which is the one that takes place on a train.)
Last Train To New York—which would depart from where… Boston? Unless this is just about an epic, zombie-splattering cross-town trip—is being developed at New Line, with James Wan attached as a producer. The original Busan-iverse, meanwhile, has continued under Yeon’s auspices; a new film in the franchise, Peninsula, released last year.