When Bong Joon-ho started production on Snowpiercer he already had a huge critical and commercial success under his belt with 2006's The Host, which competed at the Cannes Film Festival. Still, Bong had yet to direct an English-language film, and his adaptation of the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige was an intellectually and artistically ambitious undertaking. With its futuristic elements, high-budget action sequences, and the sophisticated political allegory at the center of its plot, Snowpiercer was not a guaranteed international success, even if it did have Hollywood A-listers Chris Evans and Ed Harris on board.
Filming took place on a studio set over the course of 72 days in Prague, Czech Republic. Visual effects were then added over the course of the next year. When it came time to release the film, Bong was happy with his product, but bigwig American producer Harvey Weinstein though the film was missing something and that its darkness and long running time would make it unsuccessful it in the United States. As Ty Burr wrote in an article about the conflict for The Boston Globe, "The wide release Weinstein envisioned now seemed risky; secondhand reports had company executives claiming the film wouldn’t be understood by audiences in Iowa and Oklahoma. Bong was told he had to cut 20 minutes or the film wouldn’t be released. In effect, he was being penalized for being too visionary." Bong stayed firm to his belief in the film as it existed and did not comply with the producer's demands.
Harvey Weinstein is quoted in an article about the feud in Variety as saying, "We kept his original vision and it worked out for everybody because it became a celebrated movie." In the end, Bong's version of the film was a smash success, even though he went against the powerful producer's wishes.
