Snowpiercer director partners with Netflix for new monster movie

Hot off the critical success of his last film, Snowpiercer, director Joon-ho Bong has teamed up with Netflix and Brad Pitt's production company to start work on his upcoming monster movie, Okja.

According to Variety, Pitt's company Plan B and Netflix are investing, backing and co-producing the film that is currently working through its pre-production phase.

Speaking to Variety, Bong gave a little bit more info on the still relatively mysterious feature, which sounds like a cross between Guillermo Del Toro's film, Pan's Labyrinth, and a Studio Ghibli feature.

"The film is about a warm friendship between a country girl and a brute with stories," Bong said. "I want to depict the two characters' bizarre journey and adventure across the tough world in an original fashion."

The movie will focus mainly on the rural girl who's in the midst of traveling from Korea's Gang-won province to the United States.

When asked why he decided to team up with Netflix instead of looking for investment from a more traditional studio, Bong said he felt like he needed more creative control and a larger budget than he had with Snowpiercer. The director added that Netflix proposed a pretty unbeatable offer, and in collaboration with Plan B, promised Bong could make as daring of a film as he wanted.

Although there's no concrete release date for the film, production is supposed to begin on the film in April with an estimated release window of 2017. If it's like Netflix's other original features, including Cary Fukunaga's (True Detective) recent Beasts of No Nation, expect the film to drop on the streaming service and in select theaters on the same day.