Star translator's alleged criminal past casts shadow over 'Project Hail Mary'

"Project Hail Mary" has been on a tear. The Ryan Gosling-led space adventure crossed $300 million at the worldwide box office over the weekend, making it the highest-grossing film ever for Amazon MGM Studios.

In Korea, it was poised to pick up where "The King's Warden," the country's biggest hit in nearly a decade, left off. With the period drama starting to taper off in its eighth week, "Project Hail Mary" drew roughly 430,000 admissions over its first weekend, the best opening for a foreign film released this year.

By its second weekend, the film had topped 1.15 million tickets in 11 days, putting it on a faster pace than last year's hit "F1" had managed on its way to 5.2 million ticket sales. Theater operators were hoping it would keep that momentum going into what is typically a quieter stretch on the calendar.

But none of that insulated the film from what came next — and it had nothing to do with the movie itself.

On Monday, entertainment outlet Dispatch reported that Hwang Seok-hee, the translator behind the Korean subtitles for "Project Hail Mary," had been convicted of sex crimes on two separate occasions.

According to the report, Hwang was convicted in 2005 after assaulting multiple women on the street in Chuncheon and again in 2014 for the quasi-rape of a student from a translation class he taught. He received suspended prison sentences both times, it claimed.

Hwang responded on social media after the report broke, saying he was reviewing the matter with his lawyer and would consider legal action if the report contained factual inaccuracies.

The backlash was immediate. Across social media and online forums, viewers demanded that Hwang's "Project Hail Mary" subtitles be swapped out for another translator's work. Others said they would boycott the film altogether.

It is not unheard of in Korea for a production to go into crisis mode over controversy surrounding the cast or crew. Actors have been dropped from press tours and promotional events over personal scandals. But a translator pulling a film into the line of fire is, by all accounts, without precedent.

Part of what makes this case unusual is how visible Hwang has become. Subtitle translators in Korea tend to keep a low profile, with some working under pseudonyms. Their names show up in the end credits, and most moviegoers never give them a second thought.

Hwang was the first to break that mold. Ever since he won rave reviews for his work on "Deadpool" in 2016, where fans credited him with nailing the film's profanity-laced humor in Korean, he has been something of a celebrity — a rarity for someone in his line of work. He has published essays, appeared on television and radio and built a social media following that at one point exceeded 100,000 on Instagram.

Beyond lending his name to more than 600 English-language films — among them major Hollywood titles like the "Spider-Man" franchise and "Avatar: The Way of Water" — Hwang was a fixture at post-screening talks, a common marketing practice in Korea where distributors invite notable figures onstage after a showing to chat with viewers. His social media reviews of the films he worked on also drew a wide readership.

The same pattern played out with "Project Hail Mary." On March 14, Hwang appeared onstage after a screening at Megabox Coex, where he discussed the film alongside an astronomy professor.

Around the same time, he promoted the film on his Instagram account, calling it a must-see and urging followers not to miss it in theaters. Those posts, now deleted, had circulated widely among his followers.

Representatives for the film's Korean distributor, Sony Pictures Korea, said Monday that no further events or engagements featuring Hwang had been scheduled for the film.

The fallout may reach further still, industry watchers say. Hwang has kept busy across the entertainment industry, his credits spanning hundreds of films and several musicals, including the Korean premiere of "Frozen" set for August. Fashion brand Beanpole has already pulled a promo clip that featured him as a model.

Given his long-running relationship with Sony Pictures Korea, there is also speculation that Hwang may have worked on the upcoming "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," another major Sony title set for release in Korea in July. The company has not commented on the matter.