Spike Lee Set To Direct Mandate Picture’s Oldboy Remake

Tags: Do the Right Thing, Film, Inside Man, Korean, Mandate Pictures, Miracle at St. Anna, movies, Oldboy, remake, revenge film, She's Gotta Have It, Spike Lee

Spike Lee will soon be returning to the big screen in over three years as he is now set to direct the remake of the beloved Korean revenge film, Oldboy, as revealed in a press release by Mandate Pictures.

This story of a man imprisoned for years out to discover the reason for his captivity is already considered a significant achievement for Asian cinema. It won the Grand Prize Jury Award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival

A couple years ago there were rumors circulating of an update to the Korean film, involving Spielberg and Will Smith. But the sensibilities of these two heavyweights were directly counter-intuitive to the style of Oldboy. Luckily, this entire idea died out pretty quickly.

So what is the latest word on this film? Spike Lee, director of She’s Gotta Have It, Do The Right Thing, and Inside Man is now set to direct the American version of Oldboy, and the prospect of this marriage is endlessly interesting. How will Spike Lee, a director who possesses clearly urban and comic sensibilities, tackle Oldboy—a movie that harbors a gritty 1970s mystery-revenge flick vibe mixed with a darkly comical and Asian sense of the fantastic?

It would be nice to see Spike Lee on his game again, who has had trouble getting anything made since his critical and commercial failure in 2008′s Miracle at St. Anna. Time will tell how this project turns out, and seeing “A Spike-Lee Joint” in front of such a cinematic hurricane could be priceless.

Below is a trailer for the original Korean film.

–Cody Mattox