Along with the Gods Gets a Third Film a Decade After Its 2017 Debut

Along with the Gods: Life and Death, the third film in the franchise, has been officially greenlit, with Dexter Studios announcing its investment on the 20th and a target of starting principal photography in the second half of 2027. Kim Yong-hwa returns as director, which means the project arrives a full decade after Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds opened in 2017.

The announcement ends a long stretch of uncertainty. The production team had spoken for years about wanting to make a third and fourth film, and late last year and early this year they reportedly checked the schedules of actors from the earlier films. Rumors of a sequel surfaced and then seemed to fade; the confirmation now settles it.

A franchise built on two record runs

Based on Joo Ho-min's popular webtoon, the series draws on an East Asian vision of the afterlife. The Two Worlds follows a deceased man who, guided by three afterlife guardians, stands trial in seven hells over 49 days. It drew 14.41 million admissions. The 2018 follow-up, Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days, set the then-record Korean opening day with 1,246,692 admissions and finished at 12.27 million. That made the series the first in Korean cinema to have its first two entries both pass 10 million.

The films also travelled. They ranked first and second among Korean releases of all time in Taiwan, and the sequel set the highest Korean opening-weekend scores at release in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Hong Kong. Domestically, the series won awards including best director, technical and visual effects prizes.

Into Gucheon, the realm of lingering souls

The new film turns to Gucheon, a place where souls who could not let go of their attachments remain instead of moving on to the afterlife. If the first film covered the seven trials and the second the thousand-year bond of the three guardians, this one follows Sol, a protagonist suspended between life and death, who crosses nine worlds in search of a song she never got to sing. It is expected to build a different world and story from the earlier two.

Dexter Studios, which invested in the first two films, returns as investor and will handle post-production: visual effects, digital intermediate color grading, and sound design and mixing. The studio says it applied VFX to more than 90% of the scenes in the earlier films, and plans to use that experience to build Gucheon's nine worlds.

Dexter co-CEOs Kim Wook and Kang Jong-ik called the series a landmark project showing what popular films can be made by combining Korean VFX technology with strong IP. They said they intend to deliver a story and visuals only they can create, aimed at a global hit.