South Korean-born American filmmaker Kogonada has joined the directing team of the “Star Wars: The Acolyte” series alongside Netflix series veteran Alex Garcia Lopez and showrunner Leslye Headland.
Kogonada’s two critically acclaimed indie films “Columbus” and “After Yang” have been widely celebrated in the time since their release in 2017 and last year respectively.
He’s also had experience in TV, credited as director and executive producer for 4 episodes of the acclaimed Apple TV+ series “Pachinko”. This project will see him reunite with his ‘Yang’ co-star Jodie Turner-Smith.
Lopez is a Netflix series regular having helmed episodes of “Daredevil,” “The Witcher,” “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” “Cowboy Bebop,” “The Punisher,” “Luke Cage” and more.
Kogonada’s hiring isn’t the first unexpected choice of late to get an acclaimed filmmaker tackling an episode of a major U.S. series. The upcoming third season of “The Mandalorian” boasts episodes helmed by “Minari” director Lee Isaac Chung and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse” co-director Pete Ramsey.
More recently “The Last of Us” had its sixth episode helmed by “Quo Vadis, Aida” helmer Jasmila Zbanic whilst the upcoming final two episodes of that series are helmed by “Border” and “Holy Spider” director Ali Abbasi.
Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Rebecca Henderson, Charlie Barnett, Dean-Charles Chapman and Carrie-Ann Moss co-star in “Star Wars: The Acolyte” which is dubbed a mystery-thriller set in the final days of the High Republic-era two centuries before ‘The Phantom Menace’.
In the series a former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes, but the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.
Headland is currently helming episodes of the Lucasfilm series in the United Kingdom with the series expected to premiere next year.
Source: Discussing Film
