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Deadline: Josh Brolin to Star in Spike Lee's Oldboy Remake

The Deadline website reported on Monday that actor Josh Brolin (True Grit, W., No Country for Old Men) will star in Spike Lee's remake of Park Chan-Wook's live-action film Oldboy, which in turn was inspired by the manga Old Boy. Brolin just finished working on Men in Black 3, and he is slated to act in Jason Reitman's Labor Day film with Kate Winslet next June.

Director Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X) signed onto Mandate Pictures' American remake of Oldboy 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.

The trade magazine 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.

Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip.