Disney+ starts work on a Korean remake of the FX series The Americans with Lee Byung-hun and Han Ji-min starring
Disney+ remakes The Americans
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Eric Schrier, Disney’s head of international local originals, has greenlit a Korean remake of FX’s hit suspense drama The Americans. This is an ironic project for Schrier because prior to accepting his position at Disney, he served as the president of FX Entertainment and had a hand in the creation of The Americans. This would make him “a little hesitant” to take on, as he explains, “I was the guy who developed The Americans. I’m still very close with Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, the originals’ creators, so I wasn’t so sure about this idea, because it’s all very near and dear to my heart.”
The Koreans
Despite his connection to the original series, Schrier now has The Koreans developing at Disney+ for a big-budget, Korean-language series. The show has also found its leads in Lee Byung-hun (G.I. Joe) and Han Ji-min (The Practical Guide to Love). They will star as a pair of North Korean spies masquerading as a happily married couple in 1990s South Korea. The series will sport one of the largest budgets for a Disney+ Asian Original.
Schrier decided to move ahead with the series when he realized how interesting the concept of The Americans would be when it’s re-contextualized in a Korean setting. The idea was born with Disney+’s content relationships with Korean television. Schrier would explain, “The similarities of the two premises — North Koreans embedded in the South, instead of Russians spying in 1980s America — started to make sense to me. But it was really the passion of our Korean team that got me excited — and I could see that, because Korea is still divided, this could be a very culturally relevant story for the local audience, which is always the primary priority for our local original content.”
Details on the remake
Per THR the plot description reads, “Set during the wave of democratization and cultural modernization that swept across South Korea in the early 1990s, The Koreans will follow a middle-class family hiding a parallel treasonous secret. While seemingly ordinary citizens in the eyes of their friends, neighbors and even their children, both parents — played by Lee Byung-hun and Han Ji-min — are actually elite North Korean spies working to bring down the South from within. Highlighting the stark differences between the two formerly united countries, the series will again follow the spies as they wrestle with conflicting feelings of patriotism, loyalty, identity and love, while a ruthless Korean counterintelligence agent draws ever closer to discovering their identities.”
The show will be written and adapted by Park Eun-kyo (co-writer of Bong Joon-ho’s Mother, Disney+ series Made in Korea). The Koreans will be helmed by director Ahn Gil-ho, who is known for the hit Netflix psychological thriller series The Glory. According to Disney, the adaptation will be made with the Korean style of production, which means employing the same writer and director for every episode, as opposed to a writers’ room and revolving guest director system typical of U.S. shows.
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