It was previously rumored and now it is a done deal as Josh Brolin will star in Spike Lee‘s Oldboy remake as a man who is kidnapped on his daughter’s birthday and held for 15 years in solitary confinement without explanation. He is eventually released and sets out on a path to take revenge on those who destroyed his life. Brolin is the first member of the cast as the film heads toward a March 2012 start date.
The only other name even mentioned in relation to the film is Christian Bale, who is said to be considering playing the villain in Oldboy alongside other post-The Dark Knight Rises prospects such as Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, Clint Eastwood’s A Star is Born and Gold for Michael Mann.
As for Brolin, he finally wrapped Men in Black III and has Gangster Squad (which just added Nick Nolte to the cast) and Jason Reitman’s Labor Day in his future. The expectation is that he will fit in Oldboy before starting work on those other two.
Oldboy was adapted by Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend, Thor) from Chan-wook Park’s original film and the Japanese manga of the same name, written by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya, that inspired it. It is also rumored that approximately twenty-percent of the new film will be new material not in either the original film or the manga. The original film, released in 2003, won the Grand Prize Jury Award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
Lee recently wrapped filming on Red Hook Summer, in which Lee reprise his role as Mookie from his 1989 breakout feature Do the Right Thing. The film currently doesn’t have a distributor or release date.
