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Variety: Christian Bale Considers Oldboy Film Remake

The industry news source Variety reported on Wednesday that Academy Award-winning actor Christian Bale (The Fighter, Batman Begins, American Psycho) is weighing his options after he wraps up filming on The Dark Knight Rises this fall, with one option being the villain role for Spike Lee's remake of Park Chan-Wook's South Korean film Oldboy.

Director Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X) signed onto Mandate Pictures' American remake of Oldboy, which is itself a live-action version of the Japanese manga Old Boy, in July.

Mandate Pictures is developing the project with producers Doug Davison and Roy Lee (The Ring, Dark Water [2005], Death Note and Godzilla remake plans) of Vertigo Entertainment and Lee's 40 Acres & A Mule Productions. Mark Protosevich (Thor, I Am Legend) wrote a script, and Mandate Pictures President Nathan Kahane is serving as executive producer.

Variety earlier described the Korean film's story about "a man who's kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years. When he's finally released and begins looking into the reason for his captivity, he soon finds out that his kidnapper has even more torturous plans for him." (The original manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi has the protagonist imprisoned for a different number of years and does not have the Korean film's added plot twist ending.)

DreamWorks had plans in 2008 to adapt the manga with director Steven Spielberg and actor Will Smith. Soon after Spielberg's planned involvement was made public in 2009, Smith told the Film School Rejects website that Spielberg's team would be adapting the original Old Boy manga, and not remaking Park's film version.