Neon is giving Korean action maestro Na Hong-jin‘s gritty monster epic Hope an early theatrical launch on premium screens across the U.S. 

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The distributor revealed Thursday that it will hold large-format screenings of Hope on Sept. 7 at 175 premium locations ahead of its wide release on Sept. 9. The one-night event, with showtimes at 6:30 p.m., spans six formats — Dolby Cinema, 4DX, ScreenX, Barco HDR, D-Box and Dolby Atmos — at theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas and elsewhere. The launch strategy is reminiscent of Neon’s rollout last year of Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey, which used advance premium-format screenings to build word of mouth on the way to the film’s strong $40 million theatrical performance.

One of the buzziest films to emerge from this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Hope’s visceral spectacle certainly seems to warrant the premium-format splash. 

Describing the film as “a superbly sustained pedal-to-the-metal experience that’s almost dizzying in its bravura,” The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief film critic hailed Hope as a “rip-roaring sci-fi creature feature” that “has instant cult classic written all over it.”

Set in the fictional border town of Hope Harbor near the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the film follows put-upon police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) and his bad-ass female deputy Sung-ae (Squid Game‘s Hoyeon) as they frantically hunt an enormous mystery creature that has begun rampaging through their village. A band of local hunters, led by the charismatic Sung-ki (Zo In-sung), joins the chase and tracks the beast into a nearby forest — only to become its prey. What begins as a series of understandable misjudgments soon spirals into tragedy on a cosmic scale.

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Hope is Na’s first feature in roughly a decade. The writer-director has become a favorite of both arthouse fans and action aficionados thanks to his trio of stunning genre movies, the brutal crime thrillers The Chaser and The Yellow Sea and the 2016 horror sensation The Wailing. He reunites here to stunning effect with his Wailing cinematographer, Hong Kyung-pyo, a revered figure in the Korean industry whose other credits include Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and Lee Chang-dong’s Burning. Hope‘s score is by Michael Abels, the composer behind Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Nope. The film’s Korean ensemble is rounded out by surprising supporting characters played by Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell and Cameron Britton. 

Hope opened at home in South Korea on July 15 and has earned $35 million, becoming the country’s third-biggest domestic release this year. 

Na conceived Hope as the first chapter of a potential franchise — and, so far, international distributors appear on board. The film’s main backer and sales agent, Plus M pre-sold the title to roughly 200 territories out of Cannes, a record for a Korean film, with the deals reportedly recouping nearly half of the movie’s net production budget ahead of release.

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