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Twitch Site: Alice's Wasikowska Offered Oldboy's Heroine Role
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
The Twitch film website reported on Friday that actress Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, The Kids Are All Right) has been offered the female lead role in Spike Lee's remake of Park Chan-Wook's live-action film Oldboy. Wasikowska will also play India Stoker in Park's English-language directorial debut film Stoker, which is slated for release in 2012.
Actress Rooney Mara (The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake) was previously offered the role, but she turned it down.
Director Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X) signed onto Mandate Pictures' American remake of Oldboy in July, and Josh Brolin is slated to play the male lead. Park's film was itself inspired by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi's manga Old Boy.
The Twitch film website also reported today that actor Clive Owen (Intruders, Children of Men, Sin City) has been offered the villain role of Adrian in the upcoming Oldboy remake. Actor Colin Firth (The King's Speech, A Single Man, Love Actually) was previously offered the role, but he passed on it.
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.
The trade magazine 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.) Lee also said that "the ending will be something that the audiences will all be... very happy with. In fact, some may consider it to be a bit darker."
Dark Horse Comics publishes the manga in North America.
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