Producer Roy Lee, who has been the impetus behind a lot of the Hollywood reworkings of Asian cinema (The Ring, The Grudge, The Departed), has been talking about the remake of Old Boy and somewhat bewilderingly, reckons the remake will be darker than the original. Pre-production on Oldboy will begin in January 2012, with shooting set to kick off in March. Lee had the following to say about what we might expect:-
“Mark Protosevich has come up with new elements to it that will throw off the audience who have seen the original movie because there are new characters and new situations that present themselves in a way that changes the story but eventually go in the same direction. 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. There’s a sort of different interpretation of that hallway scene that is going to hopefully be Spike’s signature moment in the movie that we want to show in a way that we’ve never seen done in an action movie.”
So far, so promising. Keep the essence intact, but embellish in such a way that is has something new to say, rather than just having change for change’s sake. I’m not sure how I feel about this at all. It’s not as if the original is sacred ground, rather that I’m not sure the remake can be surprising or different enough. The last thing we need is another Let the Right One In / Let Me In debacle.