Drake Doremus To Direct ‘Aurora’ For Korean Studio CJ Entertainment

EXCLUSIVE: Like Crazy director Drake Doremus is to direct romantic-drama Aurora for Korean production and distribution powerhouse CJ Entertainment, I can reveal.

The Handmaiden and Snowpiercer backer CJ, which is ramping up its multi-territory production slate, is developing, producing and financing the movie, which is being scripted by Salvador Paskowitz, co-writer of The Age of Adaline.

The project, currently in development, is described to me as a “sweeping romantic drama with a supernatural elements.” It follows a widower who, 25 years after his wife’s death, continues to live alone in Iceland. When a young man comes into his life with a mysterious connection to his past the two develop an uneasy relationship, causing them to question their identities and their past lives.

Producing for CJ Entertainment will be Tae-sung Jeong, CEO of CJ Entertainment, Francis Chung, VP of Global Co-Productions and Head of U.S. Production as well as director Doremus. Jerry Ko, Head of International, will executive produce. Fred Lee, CJ Entertainment’s Los Angeles-based Director of Development, and Jihyun Ok, CJ’s Seoul-based Director of Development, will oversee development of the project. Adam Mehr of Pryor Cashman negotiated the Aurora deal on behalf of CJ Entertainment.

CJ Entertainment’s Francis Chung said, “We developed Aurora with the goal to introduce to the global audience a very unique romance movie. We couldn’t have asked for a better team than Drake and Sal. Something very special is definitely in the works.”

Doremus’s most recent film, the sci-fi romance Zoe starring Ewan McGregor, Rashida Jones and Christina Aguilera, premiered at this yuear’s Tribeca Film Festival. Paskowitz most recently adapted the upcoming movie Girl Underwater for LD Entertainment, his feature follow-up to The Age of Adaline.

CJ has been ramping its English-language production push over the past two years. In recent months the company has optioned novel The Vanished and signed Carol director Phyllis Nagy to direct and write; closed a deal with Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious) to write the adapted screenplay for an English-language remake of popular horror film The Housemaid – a project CJ is also developing, financing and producing; and tapped actor-director Joel David Moore (Avatar) to write and direct the company’s remake of the 2013 hit Korean horror Hide And Seek.

The firm has also been ploughing a furrow in the increasingly popular local-language remake space and has a hefty library of its own from which to draw on.

Drake Doremus is represented by UTA, Lighthouse Management & Media and Morris Yorn. Salvador Paskowitz is represented by APA and Stone Genow.