Michael Fassbender voices one of the aliens in Hope, and Neon has now put that casting choice at the center of a new behind-the-scenes featurette. The clip arrives while Na Hong-jin’s film is still moving through its release rollout, with a South Korean theatrical run in July and a U.S. debut on Sept. 9.
The featurette matters because it turns the voice cast into part of the sell. Fassbender joins Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell, and Cameron Britton as the actors giving the creatures their voices, which makes the alien side of the film a recognizable ensemble rather than a single-stunt credit. For a release built around creatures, that is the piece Neon wants viewers to notice before tickets go on sale in two markets.
Na Hong-jin’s 156-minute cut
Michael Fassbender drives The Agency Season 2 with a double-agent turn, but here the focus is on how Neon is shaping Hope as a theatrical event. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival at 160 minutes, then was trimmed to a 156-minute final cut after Neon acquired it, a small cut that suggests a tighter commercial version without changing the basic scale of the project.
Na Hong-jin directed The Wailing in 2016, and Hope keeps that same collision of genre pressure and controlled pacing. A runtime this long does not invite casual curiosity; it asks for a committed audience, which is why the featurette functions less like bonus material and more like an early sales tool for a movie still being positioned across territories.
Rotten Tomatoes and Neon
Hope holds a 77% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 44 reviews, a useful marker as the film heads toward release. The number sits alongside the film’s path through Cannes Film Festival and into Neon’s rollout, and it gives the campaign something concrete to point to beyond the creature design and cast names.
Neon’s handling of Hope fits a broader pattern: it previously released Parasite, which won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best International Feature, and it also acquired No Other Choice. That track record helps explain why this featurette lands as part of a larger North American and South Korean push rather than a routine promo drop.
For readers deciding whether to track the film, the useful takeaway is simple: the cast behind the aliens is now public-facing, the cut is locked at 156 minutes, and the release window is set. What the final visual effects look like in full remains the last major piece to judge when Hope reaches theaters in July and on Sept. 9.
