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Josh Brolin: Park Chan-wook Gave Blessing on Oldboy Remake

Josh Brolin (True Grit, W., No Country for Old Men), the actor who will be starring in Spike Lee's upcoming remake of Park Chan-Wook's live-action film Old Boy, which was itself influenced by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi's manga Old Boy, stated in an interview posted on Thursday that he sought Park's "blessing" before accepting the role.

Brolin told the interviewer: “I love Oldboy and I'm close with Chan-wook Park and I emailed him a couple months ago just asking for his blessing to do this movie, because if he had said no I wouldn't have done it. I really respect his movie and we'll make a little different movie, and this whole idea of a more Hollywood version of it, whatever – we're just going to do a different version and have respect for the initial story and premise.”

Brolin did not give specifics regarding the extent to which the remake will stay faithful to Park's film, but he did acknowledge that the original's trademark fight scene would be kept. The article also states that the film will begin shooting in October.

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 has the protagonist imprisoned for a different number of years and does not have the Korean film's added plot twist ending.)

Source: Movieline