Disney+ Is Remaking a Beloved Spy Thriller 8 Years After It Ended

One of the most celebrated spy dramas in television history is coming back — and this time, it’s heading to Disney+. Eight years after FX’s The Americans aired its series finale, a remake is officially in development, reimagined under the working title The Koreans.

The original series ran on FX and earned widespread critical acclaim for its tense storytelling, complex characters, and morally layered portrait of Cold War espionage. Now, with a major streaming platform behind it, the story is being retooled for a new era — and a new cultural context.

For fans of the original and newcomers alike, here’s what we know so far about the remake and how it connects to the show that came before it.

What The Americans Was — And Why It Still Matters

If you never caught the original FX series, the premise is worth understanding before the remake arrives. The Americans centered on two KGB agents — Nadezhda and Mikhail — who lived deep undercover in the United States, posing as a married American couple named Elizabeth and Philip Jennings.

The roles were played by Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, both of whom delivered performances that earned serious awards attention throughout the show’s run. Their characters weren’t just spies running missions — they were raising two children, Paige (played by Holly Taylor) and Henry (played by Keidrich Sellati), both of whom were born in America and had no idea who their parents truly were.

That tension — between patriotic duty, personal identity, and family loyalty — is what made The Americans stand apart from most spy dramas. It wasn’t about action sequences. It was about what it costs to live a lie, and what happens when the people you love are the ones you’re deceiving most.

The Disney+ Remake: What We Know About The Koreans

The remake, reported under the title The Koreans, is being developed for Disney+. The project signals a significant shift in setting and cultural framing from the original — transposing the core spy-couple premise into a new national and geopolitical context.

Rather than Soviet KGB agents embedded in Cold War America, the remake’s title strongly suggests the story will follow Korean intelligence operatives living undercover — a timely reimagining given the ongoing global attention to Korean politics, the Korean Peninsula’s geopolitical tensions, and the massive international popularity of Korean film and television.

Disney+ backing the project also means considerably more resources than a cable drama typically commands, which points toward a high-production-value series with the kind of cinematic scope that streaming platforms have come to compete on.

Original vs. Remake: Key Facts at a Glance

Why This Remake Could Work — And What Fans Are Watching For

Remaking a beloved series is always a risk. The Americans has a passionate fanbase that holds the original in high regard, and any new version will inevitably be measured against Russell and Rhys’s performances, which are considered among the best in prestige television history.

But the core premise — undercover spies hiding in plain sight while raising a family — is genuinely elastic. It doesn’t belong exclusively to the Cold War. The psychological and emotional stakes of that kind of double life translate across cultures and eras, which is exactly what makes the Korean reimagining a credible creative choice rather than a hollow cash-in.

The timing also works in the remake’s favor. Korean storytelling has proven its global appeal in a way that would have been hard to predict a decade ago. A Disney+ series built around Korean operatives embedded in a foreign country could tap into that same international audience while delivering the slow-burn tension the original was known for.

What remains to be seen is whether the writers and producers can capture the emotional intimacy that made the original so memorable — because the spy mechanics were always secondary to the marriage at the center of it.

What Happens Next

As of now, the remake is confirmed to be in development at Disney+, but casting, a premiere timeline, and detailed plot specifics have not yet been announced. Given how early the project appears to be, it’s likely that more concrete details — including who will lead the series — will emerge in the coming months.

Fans of the original would do well to revisit The Americans in the meantime. All six seasons are available to stream, and the show holds up remarkably well — particularly its final season, which remains one of the most emotionally devastating conclusions in prestige drama history.

Whether The Koreans can reach those heights is the only question that matters now.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is The Koreans on Disney+?
The Koreans is the reported working title for a Disney+ remake of FX’s acclaimed spy drama The Americans, reimagined in a new cultural and geopolitical context.

Who starred in the original The Americans on FX?
The original series starred Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as undercover KGB agents living as an American married couple named Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, with Holly Taylor and Keidrich Sellati as their children.

When did The Americans end?
The Americans aired its series finale in 2018, making the Disney+ remake announcement eight years after the show concluded.

Who will star in The Koreans remake?
Casting for the Disney+ remake has not yet been confirmed as of the time of this report.

How many seasons did The Americans run?
The original FX series ran for six seasons before concluding in 2018.

Is The Americans remake a direct retelling or a new story?
Based on available information, the remake appears to transplant the core concept — undercover intelligence operatives posing as a couple — into a new national context, rather than being a direct scene-for-scene retelling of the original.