SEOUL – Korean-American star Don Lee, also known as Ma Dong-seok, will join the Hollywood adaptation of sci-fi novel Hell Divers, the actor’s agency said last Friday.

The film is based on the first three books in author Nicholas Sansbury Smith’s 10-book dystopian sci-fi novel series (2016).

Set two centuries after the planet has been poisoned by World War III, Hell Divers will show how humans live on massive airships circling the globe in search of a habitable area to call home.

The survival of the people is dependent on so-called Hell Divers, men and women who skydive and risk their lives to scavenge for parts the ships need. Lee, 52, plays legendary Hell Diver Xavier, or X.

Arad Productions and the Oscar-nominated VFX supervisor and animation director Jerome Chen will work together under Lee’s United States banner, Gorilla 8 Productions. The director has not been named.

Lee, who is known for acting in South Korean movies such as Train To Busan (2016), The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil (2019) and The Roundup franchise (2017 to present), made his Hollywood debut in the Marvel superhero film Eternals (2021), playing the powerful Gilgamesh.

The action heavyweight is also due to star in the US remake of The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil, according to US entertainment website Deadline.

Meanwhile, The Roundup: No Way Out – the third instalment of The Roundup film series – which hit South Korean theatres on May 31, reached 9.07 million tickets as of the fourth week of June, according to the Korea Box-office Information System. Lee reprises his role as tough guy detective Ma Seok-do in the film.

The Roundup (2022), the second instalment of the crime action series, was the country’s highest-grossing film in 2022 with more than 12.6 million admissions. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK