EXCLUSIVE: We are hearing that 2x Oscar nominated Minari filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung is in talks to direct the Ocean’s prequel for Warner Bros. Pictures which LuckyChap is producing.
In true Ocean’s fashion, the plot is locked in the vault. The project remains in early development. The current screenplay is by Carrie Solomon and based on characters created by George Clayton Johnson & Jack Golden Russell.
The Las Vegas heist series of movies, originally made famous with the 1960 first installment starring five members of the Rat Pack –Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop– and Angela Dickinson, has always been a cornerstone franchise for Warner Bros. Steven Soderbergh rebooted the series in 2001 with a new trilogy starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts. There was also a 2018 all female version starring Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett. Those four movies cleared north of $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office.
Chung was nominated for best director and original screenplay for A24’s Minari which also won the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at Sundance in 2020 and garnered Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice wins, along with multiple Academy, Independent Spirit, BAFTA and SAG Awards nominations. Minari was nominated for six Oscars, winning one for Youn Yuh-jung in Best Supporting Actress. The film was named one of the ten best films of 2020 by the American Film Institute and by the National Board of Review, which also awarded him Best Original Screenplay.
Chung rebooted Universal and Warner Bros’ Twisters, which posted an $81.2M domestic opening and legged out to $267.7M domestic and $372.2M worldwide. The filmmaker’s other projects include Munyurangabo, which premiered in 2007 at the Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim and episodes of The Mandalorian and Skeleton Crew. He is set to direct the upcoming feature adaptation of the sci-fi novel Traveler by Joseph Eckert. A son of Korean immigrants, Chung grew up on a small farm in rural Arkansas and then attended Yale University before abandoning plans for medical school to earn his MFA in film studies at the University of Utah. He is repped by CAA and Jackoway Austen.
