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FilmDistrict Acquires Spike Lee's Oldboy Remake in U.S.
posted on by Egan Loo
The movie distributor FilmDistrict (Drive, Looper, Red Dawn remake) announced at the Toronto Film Festival on Friday that it acquired the rights to release Spike Lee's remake of the Oldboy film in the United States. FilmDistrict acquired the rights from Good Universe, the production company that Mandate Pictures founders Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane had just established earlier this year. Good Universe had already licensed the Oldboy remake's distribution rights for other countries to Universal Pictures.
Actor Josh Brolin (Milk, Men in Black 3), actor Sharlto Copley (District 9, The A-Team), and Olsen have been attached to this planned remake of Chan-wook Park's live-action film Oldboy, which is itself an adaptation of Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi's manga. The Los Angeles Times reported last month that Samuel L. Jackson (Jungle Fever, Pulp Fiction, The Avengers) has joined the cast as well, and another collaborator of Lee's, Nate Parker (Red Tails, Red Hook Summer, The Secret Life of Bees), is in talks.
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. Dark Horse Comics published the original manga in North America.
The remake's producers include Vertigo Entertainment's Roy Lee and Doug Davison, along with Good Universe's Kahane. The executive producers are FilmDistrict CEO Peter Schlessel, Good Universe's Drake, and John Middleton.
Source: Variety
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