‘The Man from Nowhere’: ‘John Wick’ Team Working on Remake of South Korean Actioner!!

Since its release in 2010, the stylish South Korean action-thriller The Man from Nowhere has been attractive to American filmmakers and studios. Originally directed by Lee Jeong-beom, starring Won Bin as that titular nowhere man, Dimension Films originally picked up the rights in 2012 for Shawn Christensen (Abduction) to write, before New Line announced their take in 2016. Now, a team of contemporary action maestros is attached to the project. Per the Hollywood Reporter, the John Wick team of Chad Stahelski and Derek Kolstad will produce and write, respectively, the Man from Nowhere remake for New Line.

The original premise of the picture reminds me a touch of John Wick, with a little Léon: The Professional thrown in for good measure — Won plays a mysterious, deadly man who embarks on a single-minded, violent chase of rescue and revenge when his only friend, a little girl played by Kim Sae-ron, is kidnapped. While no premise details of the remake have been specified, I can’t imagine they’d move too far from the source material, given its bare simplicity and similarity to the Wick-verse already.

Stahelski and Kolstad are working on the movie through their 87Eleven Entertainment production/stunt-team banner, which means you know the action is gonna kick ass (even though they haven’t announced a director yet either). Beyond Stahelski, producers include 87Eleven’s Jason Spitz and New Line’s Richard Brener, Josh Mack and Chris Pan. Normally I’m not a fan of English-language remakes, especially of my beloved South Korean genre cinema scene (cc: Spike Lee‘s Oldboy), but in this case, the filmmakers and material seem an almost too-perfect match.