Bong Joon Ho will release a book of illustrations presented as a graphic novel of his complete storyboards for his Best Picture-winning film “Parasite” that Grand Central Publishing will release this summer, the film’s studio Neon announced Thursday.
Grand Central Publishing acquired the North American rights to the book of storyboards from David Kuhn and Nate Muscato at Aevitas Creative Management. The book was published as “Parasite: The Screenplay and Storyboard Book” in South Korea in October.
The book features 304 pages of drawings each hand-drawn by Bong himself that depict every scene in the movie and even make it read much like a graphic novel. The dialogue, stage and camera directions will be translated into English from Korean, and the book will include a foreword written by Bong about the making of the film and his creative process.
Bong actually shared some of these illustrations as seen in the book for TheWrap Magazine’s cover story on the director and film, which you can see here.
“I storyboard everything, and I do it myself,” Bong said of his process. “I draw it on my iPad and put it on iCloud.” He added: “I don’t know why I put in all the effort to draw this when I could hire someone to do it for me.”
“Director Bong’s illustrations share the illuminating power of his writing and directing, making the ‘Parasite’ graphic novel a gorgeous, riveting read and fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse at the making of one of the best films of the year,” senior editor Wes Miller said in a statement, who acquired the graphic novel for Grand Central Publishing. “The result is an all-new way to experience the vertiginous delights and surprises of Bong Joon Ho’s deeply affecting, genre-defying story.”
Bong’s film won four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Film and Best Original Screenplay, after having won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Since then it’s grossed over $50 million at the worldwide box office, the fourth highest-grossing international film ever released in the U.S. “Parasite” was written and directed by Bong and stars Song Kang Ho, Choi Woo Shik, Park So Dam, Cho Yeo Jeong, Lee Jung Eun, Lee Sun Kyun, and Chang Hyae Jin.
Those who missed the film in theaters have one more day to catch it in IMAX as part of special re-release, or when it begins streaming exclusively on Hulu on April 8.