Ridley Scott Considers “The Wailing” Remake

By
Garth Franklin -

Thursday, January 19th 2017 3:46 pm


It scored rave reviews and appeared on plenty ‘Best Films of 2016’ critics lists. So it comes as little surprise that an English-language remake of Na Hong-Jin’s semi-supernatural mystery thriller “The Wailing” may soon be on the way as Ridley Scott’s Scott Free is looking into the remake rights.
The original film follows a policeman who teams up with a shaman and a mysterious woman to investigate mysterious killings and illnesses around a village in the mountains of South Korea. The incidents are timed with the arrival of an elderly Japanese man.
Fox International Hosung Kim tells Screen Daily that there’s a big challenge to getting this remake right due to the original’s tone which combined gorgeous widescreen visuals, wacky black comedy, gruesome police procedural, and some seriously creepy horror elements. As a result, Kim says they are being very protective of the original property:

“They said ‘The Wailing’ reminded them of films such as ‘The Exorcist,’ ‘The Ring’ and ‘Seven’. The locality and sensibility of ‘The Wailing’ is so strong that I don’t think it would be easy to do a Western remake, and it will be important who directs it. So I told him I think the only director who could do the remake is Na Hong Jin. But we are still in early stages of talks. We’re being careful. As you know, there are a lot of remakes out there being developed [that haven’t come to fruition].”

“The Wailing” is currently available to rent or buy on U.S. VOD services like iTunes and Amazon.

Ridley Scott Considers “The Wailing” Remake