Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-woon’s Cobweb, starring Song Kang-ho, which had its world premiere Out Of Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Barunson E&A is handling international sales on the film, which has also been sold to most of the rest of the world, including Japan (Happinet Phantom Studio), France (The Jokers, in a deal sealed by Finecut), Germany & Italy (Plaion Pictures), Spain (La Aventura) and Australia & New Zealand (Umbrella Entertainment).
Set in 1970s Korea, when censors could dictate the plot of a film, Cobweb stars Song as an obsessive director who wants to re-shoot the ending of his completed film ‘Cobweb’ in two days to create a masterpiece. In the process he must contend with an uncooperative cast and crew, as well as interference from the censorship authorities.
Song starred in Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and won Best Actor at Cannes in 2022 for his role in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker. Cobweb is his fifth on-screen collaboration with Kim.
Kim’s credits include gritty noir A Bittersweet Life (2005), revenge thriller I Saw The Devil (2010), ‘Kimchi’ western The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008), period spy action The Age Of Shadows (2016) and recent AppleTV+ sci-fi thriller series Dr. Brain (2021).
“We are excited to distribute director Kim Jee-woon’s Cobweb in North America. He is a super talent and the film, which we saw in Cannes, is fun with great performances from its all-star cast and will appeal to not only genre audiences but cinephiles,” said Samuel Goldwyn Films CEO Ben Feingold.
Barunson E&A has also sold Cobweb to Clover Films for Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, Edko Films for Hong Kong and Macau and TBA Studios for the Philippines.
Produced by Anthology Studios, Cobweb will also screen at Fantastic Fest, BFI London Film Festival and Sitges Film Festival in Spain.
Samuel Goldwyn Films will release the film in the U.S. in early 2024.
