Spielberg Remaking Oldboy. Trade Roughage 11/07/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

The long overdue remake of Chan Wook-park’s Oldboy (which was based on a manga) has just fallen into surprisingly heavy hands. Steven Spielberg is now involved in some capacity and Will Smith will star as the vengeful kidnap victim. Will such populist dreammakers retain all that graphic violence? Will Universal (and mainstream audiences) be okay with such a disturbing reveal at the end? Is it really necessary to remake such an internationally crossed-over title in the first place?
Universal apparently wants to continue in the musical business following its success with Mamma Mia! However, while an adaptation of In the Heights might be great, there’s no way it’ll do even a tenth of the business that Mamma has done across the globe.
An adaptation of the recent LA Times‘ series on the 1940s LAPD organized crime task force could be pretty cool, but Warners may want to title it something other than Gangster Squad, which sounds a little too much like Monster Squad. Mickey Cohen’s got nards!
Obviously Madagascar 2 will be #1 this weekend, but is Variety really correct to speculate that Soul Men might only be big with African American audiences? Never mind Bernie Mac’s pre-death crossover successes. But no mention of the celebrity death cult that was constantly referenced when The Dark Knight was opening?

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