The V/H/S 2 director Timo Tjahjanto reportedly gets a new title with Last Train to New York. The original film, written by Park Joo-suk and directed by Yeon Sang-ho, revolved around a divorced father who teams up with other engers on a bullet train heading from Seoul to Busan as a zombie apocalypse suddenly breaks out in the country. The cast for the original Train to Busan included Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, Ma Dong-seok, Kim Su-an, Choi Woo-shik, Ahn So-hee and Kim Eui-sung.
Premiering at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, Train to Busan has received rave reviews from critics and audiences alike for its fast-paced action, layered characters and social commentary layered in between the terror. The film was also a box office hit, grossing nearly $100 million against its $8.5 million budget and breaking Korea's audience record of over 10 million theatergoers upon its release. Development on an English-language Train to Busan remake has been in the works since the film's release, though progress began gaining steam when New Line Cinema, James Wan's Atomic Monster and Coin Operated partnered for the remake with Warner Bros. set to distribute worldwide in 2018.
Nearly a year after the director signed on to helm the film, Deadline reports that Tjahjanto is currently working on a reboot of the Steven Seagal-led action franchise Under Siege. In the announcement, it was revealed that the Train to Busan English-language remake is now reportedly titled Last Train to New York. No update on when production could begin on the film has been given at the time of writing.
Given Train to Busan remake is being made for an American audience, it makes sense that the story would shift to New York, one of the few major metropolitan cities to still have multiple running enger trains. With the Under Siege reboot still in the early stages of development and the action horror remake having languished in development hell for five years, it seems likely that the latter project is still taking priority for Tjahjanto and the studios backing it. As many details are still largely unknown on the remake, it's difficult to speculate whether the Last Train portion of the title connects to the apocalyptic nature of the film's story or points towards a nighttime setting for its events.
Train to Busan has been one of the most talked-about horror films of the past decade, with Shaun of the Dead co-writer/director Edgar Wright citing it as the "best zombie movie I've seen in forever." This success spawned the standalone sequel, Peninsula, though with it having seen a more mixed response from critics in comparison to its predecessor and the overall reluctance from audiences for English-language horror remakes, anticipation may not be as high for Last Train to New York. Only time will tell whether the film reaches the critical heights of The Ring or the lows of One Missed Call.
Source: Deadline
