Nothing about Bugonia feels safe—and that's exactly the point.
When news dropped that Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia was jumping the line for an earlier release (October 24 limited, October 31 wide), the internet buzzed with surface-level takes: Oscar darling Emma Stone, a sci-fi comedy, and another reunion with her Poor Things director. But dig a little deeper—beneath the candy-colored paranoia and alien abduction premise—and this isn't just another zany genre detour. It's something colder. Stranger. Maybe even scarier.
Because Bugonia, at its core, remakes Save the Green Planet!—a cult-classic Korean black comedy that walks a tightrope over mental illness, abuse, and unchecked corporate power. The original wasn't cute. It was chaos in a bottle: two conspiracy theorists kidnap a corporate CEO, convinced she's an alien. And maybe she is. Maybe she's not. But by the end, you're less worried about the truth and more horrified at how far belief can go.
So when you pair that story with Lanthimos—a man whose version of romance involved surgical mutilation (The Lobster) and whose satire of desire won Stone her second Oscar (Poor Things)—you don't get “just another” sci-fi comedy. You get The Office if David Brent were an actual cult leader. You get Get Out, but the threat isn't racism—it's nihilism.
Here's the uncomfortable truth:
Hollywood is finally ready to admit that the real aliens are already here—and they run the corporations.
And that's what makes Bugonia's timing curious. This isn't an escapist holiday flick. It's dropping just before Halloween—when we're wired to expect monsters. But what if the real horror isn't tentacled space invaders or laser beams? What if it's the people who smile during layoffs and call it “restructuring”?
There's precedent here. When Bong Joon-ho's Parasite crossed borders and blew up the Oscars, it wasn't just because of its genre-bending brilliance. It was because it named the villain everyone recognized but rarely confronted: structural inequality. And Bugonia, if Lanthimos plays it right, could be his answer to that. A psychotic fairy tale in corporate drag.
Will audiences get it? Hard to say. American remakes of Korean films have a patchy record. (Oldboy, anyone?) But Lanthimos isn't a studio yes-man—he's a Greek New Wave oddity with a Best Director nomination. And teaming again with screenwriter Will Tracy (Succession, The Menu) suggests the film might lean harder into absurdist capitalism than outer-space antics.
And Emma Stone? She's proven she can disappear into roles that demand discomfort. Bugonia won't be her playing dress-up. It'll be her playing demolition.
So yeah—mark the date. October 24.
But don't expect a popcorn flick. Expect an existential crisis dressed in bubble wrap.
Would you kidnap a CEO if it meant saving the planet?
Sound off in the comments—before Bugonia abducts the conversation.
