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Director Spike Lee Signs Onto Oldboy Film Remake
posted on by Egan Loo
Director Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X) has signed onto Mandate Pictures' American remake of Park Chan-Wook's South Korean film Oldboy, which is itself a live-action version of the Japanese manga Old Boy. The industry news source Variety describes 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.)
The Twitch film website reported last week that Lee was in talks with Mandate Pictures for the remake. 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 last feature film that Lee directed was Miracle at St. Anna in 2008.
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.
Source: Variety
Update: More information added.
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