The first trailer for Bugonia has arrived, offering a first look at the latest collaboration betweenYorgos Lanthimosand Emma Stone.
The acclaimed Greek film-maker and the American actor have previously worked on The Favourite, Poor Things and, most recently, Kinds of Kindness. The relationship has netted Stone an Oscar nomination and a win.
Bugonia is a remake of the 2003 sci-fi comedy Save the Green Planet! from South Korean director Jang Joon-hwan. It tells the story of two conspiracy-obsessed men who kidnap the high-powered CEO of a corporation convinced she is a dangerous alien. Stone is joined by her Kinds of Kindness co-starJesse Plemonswhile Alicia Silverstone and comedian Stavros Halkias also appear.
The film is also produced by Hereditary and Midsommar director Ari Aster, who recently directed Stone in the Covid-set comedy westernEddington, which premiered to mixed reviews at this year’s Cannes film festival.
The screenplay comes from Will Tracy, who has worked on Succession and also written the script for comedy thriller The Menu. He created 2024’s HBO series The Regime, a satire starring Kate Winslet that received mostly negative reviews.
Lanthimos spoke about the movie in ainterviewwith The Playlist last year:
Well, actually just this one is one of the few times that I read a script that I hadn’t generated or I hadn’t been developing for a long time, and I was immediately drawn to it. And then I did a little bit of work with the writer Will Tracy in order to make it a little bit more my own. It’s just one of these things that something clicks in the story, in the tone. Again, something you probably haven’t done before, working with the same actors, like working with Emma again and Jesse, it’s just exciting to get into it, do something different, but also with that kind of familiarity.
Lanthimos is also attached to an adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation and an adaptation of Jean-Patrick Manchette’s assassin thriller Fatale.
Stone is set for an untitled romantic comedy directed by her husband, Dave McCary, while Plemons, who was recently seen in Netflix’s thriller series Zero Day, will appear alongside Tom Cruise in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s untitled new comedy.
Bugonia has been tipped to premiere at this year’s Venice film festival given that Lanthimos has premiered a number of his movies there before. The film will be released in cinemas in October.