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Deadline: District 9's Copley Closes Deal on Oldboy

The Deadline film website reported on Tuesday that actor Sharlto Copley (District 9, The A-Team) has been confirmed as playing the villain role of Adrian Pryce in Spike Lee's 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.

It had been reported earlier this month that Copley was in talks for the role. According to the article, the film will begin shooting in late September of this year. The report describes Copley's character as "a mysterious billionaire trying to destroy the life of Joe Douchett (Josh Brolin)."

Past actors who have been offered the role of Adrian include Clive Owen (Intruders, Children of Men, Sin City), Colin Firth (The King's Speech, A Single Man, Love Actually), and Christian Bale (The Fighter, Batman Begins, American Psycho).

In January, Variety reported that production on the film has been delayed until late summer or early fall because of actor Josh Brolin's press commitments for his Men in Black 3 film. Brolin is slated to play the male lead in the film.

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.)

Image via IMDb

Update: Deadline also reported that Elizabeth Olsen will star in Oldboy.