Korean Actioner The Man From Nowhere Headed West Via New Line

New Line has nabbed rights to offer a western spin on Korean action movie The Man From Nowhere, according to Deadline.

First released in 2010 via CJ Entertainment, Lee Jeong-beom’s über-violent thriller orbits around a “pawnshop keeper (Won Bin) with a violent past who takes on a drug-and-organ-trafficking ring to save the child who’s his only friend.” Largely taking place under the bright neon lights of Seoul, it’s really Bin’s connection with wide-eyed youngster So-mi (Kim Sae-ron) that anchors the action, who often visits our luckless protagonist to escape her own violent life at home.

Touting a similar one-man-army motif to Taken and 2014 sleeper hit John Wick, The Man From Nowhere stormed to the top of the Korean box office upon release, where it remained for five consecutive weeks resulting in a box office total of $41 million. That’s quiet the impressive haul, and it’ll be fascinating to see how the studio translates the actioner to a western audience. Prior to today’s acquisition, Dimension Films held rights to the remake, but New Line swooped in once the project began to languish on the fringes of development.

No producer nor director is currently attached to New Line’s western take on The Man From Nowhere, but expect news to emerge once pre-production kicks off in earnest.