Movies
Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Bugonia’ Starring Emma Stone & Jesse Plemons Shifts Into Halloween Release
Focus Features announced today that Bugonia, the latest film from Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos, has been bumped from its November release date in favor of Halloween.
Bugonia will receive a special limited engagement on October 24, ahead of a wide expansion theatrically on October 31, 2025. Bugonia was initially slated for November 7 release.
The weeklong cinematic event will feature screenings of the film, which was shot in VistaVision, at select locations in New York and Los Angeles.
The film follows “two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced she is an alien intent on destroying Planet Earth.”
While that may sound more conspiracy thriller, Bugonia is an English-language remake of 2003’s Korean genre-bender Save the Green Planet!, an off-beat, black comedy-sci-fi mashup written and directed by Jang Joon-Hwan. It’s full of shocking moments and unexpected twists, but it’s also a darkly funny movie that suits Lanthimos’ style well.
Emma Stone (Poor Things), Jesse Plemons (Civil War, Antlers), Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias (Let’s Start a Cult), and Alicia Silverstone (The Lodge) star in Bugonia. Lanthimos directs from a screenplay by Will Tracy (The Menu).
Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) produces along with Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Miky Lee, Jerry Kyoungboum Ko, Lanthimos, Stone, and Lars Knudsen.
Producers Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen previously said in a statement, “Swinging with youthful abandon between white-knuckle suspense, absurd slapstick, grim horror and a deeply felt (and earned) sense of tragedy, Save The Green Planet! is one of the most remarkable films to come out of South Korea – among this recent wave or any wave, for that matter. When we heard that director Jang was passionate about revisiting this iconic work, bringing it to the US and updating it to reflect the mess of the world today (which feels even more ripe for this kind of apocalyptic skewering than when the film was first released), we leapt at the chance to be a part of it. We’re honored to be partnering with CJ and with the brilliant director Jang.”
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallis.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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