Spike Lee to direct Oldboy remake!

From Deadline:

Mandate Pictures just announced that Spike Lee will direct Oldboy, a remake of the cult 2003 South Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook that won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. Mark Protosevich has adapted the screenplay and will co-produce; Roy Lee and Doug Davison will produce via Vertigo Entertainment with Lee's 40 Acres & A Mule. Mandate president Nathan Kahane will executive produce. Lee and Protosevich are repped by CAA. Dan Freedman, SVP business affairs, negotiated the deals for Mandate.

This is the project that Steven Spielberg and Will Smith were looking to collaborate on back in 2008, with DreamWorks seeking the remake rights at the time. The film originally was set up at Universal before Mandate took over. The story centers on 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.

Spike Lee is going to be playing Mookie again in an upcoming film project?

Apparently so, according to The Playlist:

“Wake Up. I been up since 430am. On the way to the set of THE NEW SPIKE LEE JOINT.Today is 1st Day of Shooting.Awwwwwwwwwwww Sheeeeeeeeeeeeet,” Spike Lee tweeted very, very early this morning. And while it was only last week that Lee talked with The Hollywood Reporter about his inability to get funding for a new feature film, it looks like very chatty director had something hidden up his sleeve.

Blackfilm (via Shadow And Act) has done the digging, revealing that Lee is reprising his role as Mookie from his seminal “Do The Right Thing” in a new film, “Red Hook Summer.” The plot will center on an adult from Atlanta who spends a summer in the titular hood, and it’s unknown if the film is a prequel, sequel or spinoff but the setting is interesting. If you recall, the northern neighborhood Bedford-Stuyvesant, loosely considered a kind of Harlem of Brooklyn if you will, served as the backdrop to “Do The Right Thing,” and we wonder what impact and perspective the switch to the southern, decidedly more gentrified Red Hook will mean. The area is off the beaten path from typical Brooklyn neighborhoods (there is no subway out there), however it is spitting distance the from old school Italian area of Carroll Gardens.

This project is coming completely out of nowhere, and we can only guess it’s a super low budget indie (or was developed completely in the dark). Of late, Lee has been linked to the gestating “Oldboy” remake as well as an HBO series “Da Brick” loosely based on the life of Mike Tyson. But to see him returning to a character and more intriguingly the kind of material that he made his name on for his next feature is tremendously exciting.

We’re sure this is just the tip of the iceberg of more info to come, but it’s been three long years since “Miracle At St. Anna’s” and while Lee has been keeping busy with various documentaries, we’re pretty stoked that his next feature is now rolling.

-Joey's Two Cents: I'm hit or miss with Lee's work, but I find 'Do The Right Thing' to be his second best work (right behind '25th Hour'), so if he's going back to his seminal character, I'm in...thoughts?

Spike Lee might now be directing the potential remake of Oldboy...

...as per this from Collider:

Much like its protagonist Oh Daesu, the remake of Chan-wook Park’s Oldboy is very hard to kill (provided the opponent is a thug in a long corridor). Last November, we reported that Mandate Pictures was still interested in the remake and loved the script by Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend) turned in. The studio was looking at Steven Spielberg, Matthew Vaughn, and Danny Boyle to take the director’s chair, but now a new name has gone on the list. Twitch reports that Spike Lee is in talks to direct the film. While I think an American remake of Oldboy is a bad idea, it could still be a hit and if it gives Lee the boost he needs to make more personal films, then so be it.

Back in 2009, Will Smith was reportedly interested in the lead role, but now that’s a laugh. Quentin Tarantino wrote Smith a raw, challenging role for Django Unchained and Smith passed (Jamie Foxx will play the role instead). It’s unlikely he would play the lead in a dark revenge thriller. On the other hand, frequent Lee collaborator Denzel Washington would be a great choice.

-Joey's Two Cents: It could be an interesting match of material and filmmaker, but who knows if this project will ever get made...thoughts?