As Clive Owen ponders the villain role in Spike Lee‘s Oldboy, Mia Wasikowska has been offered the female lead of Marie. If Wasikowska accepts, she’ll be starring opposite Josh Brolin, the only star confirmed so far for the English-language remake of the twisted 2003 thriller from Korean filmmaker Chan-wook Park. More details after the jump.
Posted on Friday, December 16th, 2011 by Russ Fischer
I’m going to keep this rather short because I don’t think at this point there’s much I can speculate about the Spike Lee remake/new version of Oldboy that I haven’t touched on a few times. The short version is that, working from a script by Mark Protosevich, Spike Lee has Josh Brolin set to play a guy who is kidnapped off the street and imprisoned for 15 years, only to be let out and teased about the identity of his persecutor.
Colin Firth was offered the role of that persecutor not long ago, and to my regret turned it down. The role is slightly more complex than your average angry thriller villain, and I think Firth could have brought a welcome depth.
Now, however, Twitch says that Lee is turning to his Inside Man leading man Clive Owen. The actor has been offered the part, but we don’t know if he’s going to jump for it. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, December 8th, 2011 by Russ Fischer
I think this is pretty disappointing. Spike Lee and Mandate Pictures are prepping a new version of Oldboy for an early 2012 shoot, and the film needs a new villain. Well, ‘villain’ is perhaps the wrong term. Regardless, Colin Firth had been offered one of the major roles in the film, and it wasn’t the ‘hero.’ But Firth has passed on the role, so Lee and Mandate have to find another actor willing to step into the shoes of one of the more interesting antagonists to hit movie screens in a while. Read More »
Posted on Monday, November 28th, 2011 by Russ Fischer
The possibility of an American remake of South Korean revenge film Oldboy has been a worrisome thing for a few years now. But this year Spike Lee was tapped to direct, which immediately made the new Oldboy a more attractive, or at least a more interesting proposition. With Josh Brolin set to star and Colin Firth playing the film’s revenge-seeking antagonist, things are looking petty damn good.
We know that Mark Protosevich is scripting and that he is basing his take on the existing movie, as well as on the manga that inspired it, but that he’s also writing new material to make this version stand on its own to some extent. We still don’t have concrete details about the new ingredients, but the film’s producer says that some of the new stuff is being created specifically to throw off audiences who know the original film. Read More »
Posted on Friday, November 11th, 2011 by Russ Fischer
Spike Lee is busy putting together a new version of Oldboy, based on a script by Mark Protosevich that draws from Park Chan-wook‘s South Korean film of the same name as well as the manga that inspired it, with some new material thrown in as well.
Josh Brolin is said to be set for the title role: a guy who is kidnapped off the street and kept in a strange hotel-like prison for fifteen years. Upon his release, the man tries to track down the person responsible for his imprisonment. That path ultimately leads back to one man, who holds a deranged sort of grudge. And an offer is reportedly out to Colin Firth to play that role, which is a great casting choice.. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 by Russ Fischer
Spike Lee is set to direct an American version of the South Korean favorite Oldboy, with Josh Brolin looking like the guy to play the lead role. Brolin would be a man who is kidnapped one night and imprisoned for fifteen years for reasons unknown to him. Released back into society just as abruptly as he was snatched, he begins to look for the person or persons responsible for his incarceration. Along the way he meets a young chef who becomes his partner in the search. And now there’s a report that Rooney Mara, of The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is the choice to play that role. Read More »
Posted on Friday, September 16th, 2011 by Russ Fischer
Fortunes can turn around fast in filmmaking. Earlier this year, Spike Lee was complaining about the difficulty financing new films. Then only weeks later he was kicking off the shoot for a film called Red Hook Summer, and then he was signed to direct a new version of Oldboy, possibly with Josh Brolin starring.
Most of what we know about Red Hook Summer comes from one early report and Spike Lee’s own Twitter account. We know that the film is in post-production now, and that he shot it on the Sony F-3. Most interesting to many will be that the film will see Lee reprising his Do the Right Thing role, Mookie. (Pictured above.) See the first promo image for the film after the break. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2011 by Angie Han
If you happened to catch a screening of Attack the Block this summer, you probably walked away thinking the same thing we did: this John Boyega kid is going to be a huge star. Well, Boyega’s now landed his first part since Attack the Block opened, and it sounds like a great one. He’ll play the lead, Donnie, in HBO’s series Da Brick, a fictionalized telling of the earliest days of Mike Tyson‘s boxing career. Spike Lee is set to direct the pilot episode from a script by John Ridley (Three Kings), and will also executive produce along with Tyson, Ridley, Jim Lefkowitz, and Entourage creator Doug Ellin.
Da Brick centers around a young man in modern-day Newark, NJ who gets released from juvenile detention on his 18th birthday. The series will aim to deal with larger issues like “what it means to be a young, black man in supposedly post-racial America” and “what it means to be a man both for himself, and to those around him.” As long as the British Boyega can pull off a convincing Jersey accent, this seems like pitch-perfect casting. [Deadline]
After the jump, In Plain Sight‘s Rachel Boston faces a possible apocalypse with Julia Stiles and America Ferrera, and Harry Lloyd, a.k.a. Viserys Targaryen, joins Vera Farmiga and Mark Strong in Closer to the Moon.
