NA Hong Jin’s ‘Hope’ gets a ‘Parasite’-like welcome from US theaters
Na Hong Jin might have America’s next Korean thriller obsession on deck — and there’s a concrete reason you’ll be hearing about it.
Variety reports that NEON is giving Na Hong-jin’s Hope an unusually wide U.S. push this fall, aiming for about 1,500 theaters nationwide — a big swing for a Korean genre movie and a clear play to make it a late-summer event.
NEON plans a U.S. rollout in roughly 1,500 theaters in September.
Who’s in it
The cast mixes Korean stars with English-language headliners — the kind of lineup that pops on a marquee even before the mayhem starts.
- Hoyeon (Squid Game)
- Hwang Jung-min
- Zo In-sung
- Taylor Russell
- Cameron Britton
- Alicia Vikander
- Michael Fassbender
What it is
Na doesn’t keep this one in a single lane. The story opens on a local mystery and keeps widening the lens until you’re looking at monsters and cosmic sci‑fi. Each gear shift cranks the tension higher without breaking the spell — the title’s dark irony very much by design.
He also flips a classic horror trick: instead of hiding the worst of it in the dark, major confrontations unfold in broad daylight. That choice puts the practical effects, foot-on-the-gas chases, and sheer physical spectacle right out in the open, escalating a tiny coastal incident into something massive.
Festival and box office heat
Back home, Hope has already become one of South Korea’s highest-grossing releases of the year. It premiered at Cannes in 2026, where it quickly turned buzzy and drew a reported six-minute standing ovation.
For U.S. moviegoers, NEON — the distributor that helped turn Parasite into a phenomenon — is betting that a wide release can let the film find its crowd in theaters rather than on the margins.
NEON is set to open Hope in U.S. theaters in September, in roughly 1,500 locations.