Creator of ‘Hellbound’ talks sequel aspirations of Netflix hit

It’s no secret that Korean TV series and films have been enjoying mainstream success lately, and the latest addition to the list is Netflix’s ‘Hellbound’.

The creator of this new sci-fi thriller series — Yeon Sang-ho — is best known internationally to date for acclaimed zombie thrillers ‘Train to Busan’ (2016) and ‘Peninsula’ (2020). In a recent interview with variety, the director opened up about sequel dreams for ‘Hellbound’ and whether audiences can expect anything new from his zombieverse.

When asked if he’d like to turn ‘Train to Busan’ franchise into a TV series, Sang-ho told Variety, “There are a lot of ideas I’ve been tossing around but I personally think that for ‘Train to Busan’, I would like to continue that as a film series. In Korea, the circumstances are not very favourable to create a series in the Korean language with visuals that are comparable to ‘Train to Busan’ the film and also, you know, I have to work with … the distributor that we started on the original film as well. So I think taking into consideration all of those conditions, a film series would be the most feasible.”

He further clarified that the new film would share the ‘Train to Busan’ and ‘Peninsula’ universe. “I would say that — in terms of that universe — they’ll all become related together. ‘Peninsula’ was a post-apocalyptic film that focused on the car chases. The story that I’m thinking about after that would be closer to ‘Train to Busan’, where the story will be carried out in a small and restricted space. That’s something that I have in mind currently. So in terms of the genre, you could say that it’s between ‘Train to Busan’ and ‘Peninsula’,” said Yeon Sang-ho.

When asked about any sequel aspirations for ‘Helbound’, Sang-ho said, “Because ‘Hellbound’ is based on the original webtoons, my partner Choi Kyu-Seok and I have decided that the story afterwards will be told first through the webtoon and, as for whether we would want to turn that into another live-action series, that’s something that we will need further discussion on. As you know, we have only just released ‘Hellbound’ season one and so we didn’t have any time to discuss that issue with Netflix. So I would say this is something we need further discussion on.”