Na Hong-jin's 'Hope' Re-edit Becomes Korea's Fastest-Grossing Film
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- Na Hong-jin spent nearly a decade making "Hope," reportedly the highest-budgeted South Korean film ever, and premiered it at Cannes in competition with a 200-minute running time against auteurs including Paweł Pawlikowski and Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
- "Hope" drew sharply divided Cannes reviews: The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney called it an "instant cult classic," while IndieWire's David Ehrlich praised the first third as "a spellbinding and gleefully frenetic mega-setpiece" before lambasting the CGI creatures in the final 100 minutes as some of the worst he had ever seen.
- Neon acquired North American rights ahead of a September 10 release, while Na continued re-cutting the film in the days after Cannes and discussed changes on IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast.
- The re-edited "Hope" opened in South Korea and sold 2.6 million tickets in five days, making it the country's fastest-grossing film ever.
- Na's revisions trimmed roughly four to five minutes, restructured the second-act storylines, added comic-relief footage of carpenter Yang Bae (Eum Moon-suk), and centered the heaviest reworking on sound design rather than visual overhauls.
- The centerpiece creature Va'migere, played by Cameron Britton via performance capture alongside Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell, underwent a significant revision, though other CGI creature work remained largely untouched.
Why it matters: Na Hong-jin's willingness to keep editing after Cannes reframed "Hope" from a 200-minute CGI-skeptic target into South Korea's fastest-grossing film ever at 2.6 million tickets in five days, showing how targeted re-edits — sound work, tightened second-act flow, added character beats — can reset both critical reception and commercial trajectory. North American audiences get the improved version first when Neon releases it September 10.
