Annabelle Comes Home director on Train to Busan zombie remake: 'I just don't want to f--- it up!'

Gary Dauberman has amassed an impressive list of horror movie screenplay credits over the past few years, including the first two Annabelle movies, IT, and The Nun. He is also the writer and director of the just-released Annabelle Comes Home and is responsible for the screenplay for IT Chapter Two (out Sept. 6). But even this rising Master of Horror admits to some trepidation about another upcoming project, an American remake of the 2016 Korean zombie film, Train to Busan, he is developing with Aquaman director and Conjuring universe overlord James Wan.

“Well, you know, the f—ing movie’s amazing, right?” says Dauberman. “So, I’m being very careful how we translate it over here. And really my rule is, Don’t f— it up! Because there’s not a lot of places in the [original film] where you go, Oh, well, they did that completely wrong. I just don’t want to f— it up and I want to be respectful of a movie that I very very much love. So, that’s something that I’ve been excited to be working on.”

Image zoom Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images

How long before the script is ready to shoot?

“Over [the holidays], while we were down from Annabelle Comes Home, I started to break it down and all that stuff,” says Dauberman. “It’s been slow going, because I’ve been working on this. I don’t know what they have in mind in terms of when they would shoot that or anything like that.”

Directed by Yeon Sang-ho, the kinetic, emotional Train to Busan tracks the travails of a father and daughter as they travel through a zombie apocalypse via train. Since its release, the film has become a firm favorite among horror connoisseurs, including Shaun of the Dead director and co-writer Edgar Wright.

“I felt until recently that making Shaun of the Dead had made me numb to zombie films in general,” Wright told EW in 2017. In fact, the first zombie film in a long time that got me sort of excited again was Train to Busan.”

Watch the trailer for the original Train to Busan above.