CAA Signs ‘Gook’ And ‘Blue Bayou’ Filmmaker Justin Chon

EXCLUSIVE: CAA has signed director, writer, actor, and producer Justin Chon for representation.

In recent years, as Chon began prioritizing work behind the camera — following early acting work in projects like Twilight and 21 & Over — he’s established himself as a Sundance favorite. He broke out with the coming-of-age drama Gook, which won the festival’s NEXT Audience Award and went on to receive the Someone to Watch Award at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Released by Samuel Goldwyn Films, Gook follows two Korean American brothers who run a small shoe store and form an unlikely friendship with a young Black girl from their neighborhood during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, as racial tensions and violence escalate around them.

Chon’s debut feature previewed his talents as a filmmaker offering up richly cinematic and character-driven explorations of the Asian American experience. Subsequent lauded efforts in that vein have included Ms. Purple, which premiered in U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, and Blue Bayou, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and was released by Focus Features. Chon starred in the latter opposite Alicia Vikander.

In television, Chon has exec produced and directed on multiple lauded series for Apple TV. He directed half of the first season of the drama Pachinko, based on the novel by Min Jin Lee, which received multiple Emmy nominations, and more recently directed the pilot and second episode of Chief of War, starring Jason Momoa.

Upcoming, Chon is set to direct Capsule, a new sci-fi film for 20th Century Studios based on a screenplay by Elijah Bynum, a project we first reported on which Hutch Parker will produce. The multi-hyphenate continues to be represented by Scott Whitehead at McKuin Frankel Whitehead LLP.