Emma Stone’s ‘Bugonia’ Set for Peacock Streaming Debut

Emma Stone’s latest foray into science fiction, helmed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is about to hit streaming screens across Australia. After a digital release in November, the much-talked-about thriller is set to arrive on Peacock on 26 December, just in time for the summer holidays. Critics have been quick to call it one of the standout films of the year, with its sharp twists and biting take on conspiracy culture.

The story centres on a high-flying CEO, played by Stone, who finds herself abducted by two blokes convinced she’s an alien plotting Earth’s destruction. The film is a loose reimagining of the 2003 Korean sci-fi comedy ‘Save the Green Planet!’, originally directed by Jang Joon-hwan. ‘Bugonia’ has been racking up praise, boasting a Certified Fresh 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 84% audience score. One reviewer described it as a “dark, discomforting satire for our polarised political era.”

Plot, Cast, and Creative Team

‘Bugonia’ first hit cinemas on 31 October 2025, with a cast that includes Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone alongside Stone. Lanthimos, known for ‘The Favourite’ and ‘Poor Things’, directs from a script by Will Tracy, who previously penned ‘The Menu’. The film marks another collaboration between Stone and Lanthimos, and there’s already talk of both picking up major nominations come awards season.

The official logline sums it up:

Two conspiracy obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.

Writing in a Time of Uncertainty

Screenwriter Will Tracy has spoken about how the pandemic shaped his approach to the story. He wrote the script during the thick of COVID-19, drawing on the sense of isolation and uncertainty that defined those months. Tracy explained,

I wrote the film sort of during the heat of COVID, and in some ways I still feel like we're living downstream from those moments, from those months. And that feeling of isolation, paranoia, confusion, not quite sure what story to believe, the official story, the unofficial story, every story that you're sort of being told doesn't really feel satisfying and doesn't really feel like it's leading you towards anything productive, either for you or your community.

The film doesn’t shy away from bleak territory, delving into the troubled past of Teddy (played by Plemons) and building towards an ending that doesn’t sugar-coat things. Tracy reckons that, at its core, the story is about people desperate to save something, even if their methods are questionable. As he puts it,

How else do you, you know, when you look around the world and see everything that's wrong, how do you live in that? You could just put on your blinders and try to make money, you put on your blinders and distract yourself, or you could try to do something... Everyone in the movie is on a mission to save something.