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Actress Elizabeth Olsen Discusses Oldboy After Reported Offer
posted on by Ko Ransom
In a video posted to MTV's website on Monday, actress Elizabeth Olsen (Silent House, Martha Marcy May Marlene) discussed her possible involvement with the upcoming Oldboy adaptation to be directed by Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X). The Twitch film website reported last week that Olsen was offered the female lead role in the film. The trade magazine Variety reported in October that actress Rooney Mara (The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake) passed on the same role.
In the interview, Olsen spoke very highly of the film and of director Spike Lee, while also doing her best to avoid speaking about the ending of the new film, a major point of interest for many fans of Park Chan-Wook's film adaptation of Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi's original manga. In a previous interview, when asked about the ending of the remake compared with Chan-Wook's original ending, director Lee said that "the ending will be something that the audiences will all be... especially the fans of the original will be very happy with. In fact, some may consider it to be a bit darker."
In January, Variety reported that production on the film has been delayed until late summer or early fall because of actor Josh Brolin's press commitments for his Men in Black 3 film. Brolin is slated to play the male lead in the film.
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.
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.)
Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip.
[Via Screenrant]
