Film School Rejects hit the red carpet for the Seven Pounds premiere and asked Will Smith about his proposed teaming with Steven Spielberg to do an American version of Park Chan Wook’s Oldboy. Not so fast, says Smith. They’re not remaking the movie after all.
“There’s the original comics of ‘Oldboy’ that they made the first film from. And that’s what we’re working from, not an adaptation of the film…”
And therein lies the rub. The Old Boy manga (have we ever settled on whether it’s Old Boy or Oldboy? I’m using two words for the manga, one for the Korean movie) has the same basic concept – dude gets imprisoned (for ten years in the comic instead of fifteen) for no reason by a mysterious person. When he gets out he seeks revenge, and has to look into his own past to figure out who he wronged and why they would want to punish him. But the manga and the movie diverge mightily from there. There’s no live squid eating. There’s no tooth torture. And there’s no incest.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the spin. Since the new movie is based on the manga, which nobody in America has read, and not the movie, which I bet every single person involved in this new version has seen and likely owns on DVD, it doesn’t have to include the edgier stuff that makes Oldboy so obviously not in the Smith and Spielberg wheelhouse. And, as a bonus, when they cut the edgier stuff they can claim they’re just being true to the source material! I can’t wait to be annoyed by this answer at the junket.
So I guess this settles it all – the American Old Boy won’t be offending anybody and will instead be a pretty standard noir/revenge story where Will Smith has to track down the guys who done him wrong, and we never have to worry that he’s going to do something really terrible like nail his daughter or cut out his own tongue. America, you’re safe.
35 comments
Of… Fucking… Course. I'm so sick of Smith. Seven Pounds is currently my least favorite trailer (what the fuck is it about? No one knows, isn't that exciting! No… God dammit).
actually, it makes perfect sense that Spielberg would make this movie. Every film he has ever made has been, in one way or another, about the redemption of the father figure. In it's own warped way, Oldboy follows that.
Spielberg has made some good movies but he has never made an edgy movie. I cant remember where I read it (it was probably from a link from here) which detailed how he and Lucas became such studio darlings in the 80s by never pushing the envelope and delivering family friendly flicks when their peers were making art. And Nazi face melting isn't edgy if everyone is cheering (except country music fans)
Good article, Devin. Not too surprising. If Spielberg/ Smith did a straight remake, the amount of heart attacks suffered by unsuspecting film goers wandering in on the strength of their names would be astounding.
the manga is actually pretty sweet. but that is a horrible, pretentious excuse for remaking the movie. park's adaptation is good enough. he used the source material and turned it into something..else.. seriously though, the fact that the excuse is "its not a remake if the 'original' was an adaptation" makes me want to hurt will smith. and i love me some fresh prince.
Got to give them points for sheer sneakiness at least.
It's a get-out, isn't it? Has all the hallmarks of a dishonest attempt to take people’s eyes off the original movie and remove the benchmark for comparison. It’s like damage limitation, pre-damage. I’d take issue with Jay’s comment that Spielberg hasn’t made an edgy film – Munich, whatever you think of it (and I thought quite highly of it, to be honest) was rather intense in places, but he’s typically averse to psychology, particularly of a brooding kind. This is just basically, ‘look, we’re gonna cut the testes off this thing, right? You’ve got 18 months or so to get used to it.’
So I'm to understand they'll only be making an inferior adaptation of the original comic instead of remaking the already excellent movie? Aww heck I sure am disappointed…
I don't understand why everyone is so attached to the hentai-esque incest plot in the first place, and I laugh at the "don't change it!" crowd – who are likely the same people that also chide shot-for-shot remakes. Bravo, hypocrites.
Once again, fuck this noise. I generally support will smith in things, cause of his 'Tude, but I think my bad boys 2 goodwill is about to run dry.
AW….HELL, NO!
Devin, if you actually have the balls to ask that question at the press junket…I'll owe you a beer.
okay. i am going to be the lone defender here and play devil advocate.
first, i couldn't care less about remakes. i'd much prefer someone remake something than make a crappy sequel to it. kick rob zombie and gus van zandt all you want but their versions of HALLOWEEN and PSYCHO, while not as good as the originals were better than the plethora of inanely pathetic sequels that came before it.
as for adapting the source material, it is an out. but it's also an easy way to adapt the story and avoid some degree of comparison. if someone came out tomorrow and said they were remaking STARSHIP TROOPERS, DAREDEVIL, LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN or I AM LEGEND and actually using the source material we'd all be cheering.
granted, OLDBOY is fine the way it is so going in a different dircetion here is going to piss people off. you know what, going iin the same direction is going to piss people off. hell, martin scorsese annouced he was remaking INFERNAL AFFAIRS as THE DEPARTED and it pissed people off. every time someone threatens to remake THE KILLER for the past twenty years someone's head explodes. in fact, you could have a wide studio release of the korean OLDBOY with an english dub and you'd all be spinning out of control.
the truth is nobody's seen these movies. that goes for remakes of american films. the average movie going audience watches studio films made in the past ten years. go to a blockbuster and see what gets returned on a weekend night. most of those movies aren't a year old and i'll eat a hat if one in fifty was foreign.
as for spielberg not being edgy, yes, he's made a career playing safe. but he's also the guy who's had nazi amon goeth sniping jews for amusement (in SCHINDLER'S LIST). he's the guy who let roy neary abandon his family (in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS). he let a ten year old kid get eaten by a shark (JAWS) and lies to an emotional robot that his adoptive mother still loves him while he's alone and dies (AI). the same guy who stages an incest scene between thirteen year old celie and (who she believes is) her father (THE COLOR PURPLE). and for those of you who don't know, atherton is put in permanent stasis and never wakes up in the end of MINORTY REPORT. lets not forget the end of SUGARLAND EXPRESS where a father is killed at the last fifty feet after a cross-texas journey to find his son. and pretty much all of AMISTAD is a bummer escpecially when the slave traders realize they can't pay the port tax on their slave cargo and chain two dozen live africans to an anchor and toss them overboard to drown.
spielberg is a master of giving you a bummer ending and not making you grieve over it.
it's undeniable spielberg is a talented guy. and will smith does things a lot of actors in his age range couldn't. bitch about I AM LEGEND all you want but watch that scene where he kills sam and tell me how many other people could do that. go watch PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION or WHERE THE DAY TAKES YOU. his performance in ALI is the only thing making that movie even watchable.
don't confuse popularity for talentless.
and justin lin (FAST AND FURIOUS TOKYO DRIFT) was attached to this movie for years and i can't believe that dude gets a pass and spielberg gets tossed under a bus.
i've said my peace. i wish them well. i like you guys. don't go flame crazy on me for disagreeing and giving them the benefit of the doubt.
http://www.jamesford.wordpress.com
Kinda like how his re-make of War of the Worlds wasn't a re-make, but a re-adaptation of the source material. I get it now. Semantics. They're what's for dinner.
What's the point?
Poster #3 are you fucking retarded? He has never been edgy? What exactly is edgy mean anyways? Was it not edgy to spout buckets of blood as a 11 year old kids gets eviscerated in a summer film? Was it not edgy, or at least brave, to tackle the idea of alien contact in such an adult way in Close Encounters. Last time I checked, smashing ppl in the face with unflinching Holocaust and D-Day violence was pretty edgy. Bash Will Smith all you want. He is as homogenized as they come. Don't start making half ass statements about Spielberg's career choices and films. He has proven that while he does gravitate towards family fare, he is perfectly capable of heading into darker, more violent areas.
Really….not edgy? Not pushing the envelope? I seem to remember the beginning to "Saving Private Ryan" being so rough that actual WW2 vets had to leave the theater because it was too realistic (I saw it happen in the theater where I saw it).
You people do realize this will end up being one of those vehicles that was always doomed to pander to Speilberg's basest, blandest, worst commercial instincts? Why? Because Will Smith's career agenda (*cough* Scientology *cough*cough*) deems it so. The guy doesn't sign up for projects unless they meet some glowing godlike or at least redemptive criteria for his character. You dont think so? Go look at his career.
I think Post 13 said it best. Yes Spielberg and Smith are populists but they're also very good at what they do. I'll reserve my outrage for when more solid info is out (like when they actually shoot the damn thing). A lot can change plotwise from pre-production to shooting.
Are we serious? Now we're all gonna do a 180 on a Spielberg/Smith remake?
OMFG.
OK, 3 cheers for studio assholes !
Bring on all the remade SHIT !
Please remake every goddamn foreign movie ever made !
Please cast Will Smith in a succession of Bollywood remakes !
I don;t care what it is, so long as Hollywood never does ANYTHING original EVER AGAIN !
Just remake it ALL, and give out free Oscars to Everyone !
HELL FUCKING YES !
anybody who defends Spielburg by using Saving Prviate Ryan is defeating themselve- maybe the opening sequence was a visceral sucker-punch to the solar plexus (except, you know, Spoiler- EVERYBODY knows to expect a fucking bloodbath when the D-Day landing at Omaha is depicted)- and then he promptly squanders that good will with incredibly bland, one-note characters (if you buy into the "it's a tribute to old fashioned war movies" cry, I'll agree, but that is another flaw to discuss at another time) and the MOST HORRIBLE FUCKING ANVIL of a "message" ever put on film. "Waaaas I a goood maaaan!?" Fuck you, Steve, we GET IT.
They are not going to force us to watch this are they? And also, they are not going to destroy all the copies of the original film so that we cant watch it again are they? From the way some people act about these remakes you sure would think that is the case.
I'm still not gonna watch it.
So Will Smith isn't going to be yanking peoples' teeth out with a claw hammer. He won't get himself out of shape for the beginning of the film and work himself back into it. He won't be screwing his daughter. We probably won't see the villain screw his sister. I'm sure we'll see heavily choreographed fight scenes, instead of the gorgeously realistic scenes of the original film. I want Justin Lin back on this project. At least he's a director I like.
What made Oldboy so resonant was that it punched you in the face, then the gut, then laughed at you while you begged it to let you sit by it at lunch. Take the same story and strip it of the squid, the teeth, the tongue, the incest, the hammers, and especially Oh De Su's crazy fucking face… well, what's left?
I liked "Oldboy" ("Old Boy"?), and while I'm not as fanatical about it as a lot of the folks here, I can understand the concern. What I DON'T like though is that some people seem to defend ANY foreign film that's slated for an American re-make, like their livelihood depends on it. They make it seem like we're the only country that's capable of making shitty movies, that even the Swedish equivalent of "Ernest Goes to Camp" is untouchable. On the other hand, I wonder if there are pretentious pricks on the other side of the world defending OUR shit . "The American version of 'Halloween 3' is PERFECT, and you're a tasteless fuck because you haven't seen it! Fuckin' Bollywood! First, they ruin 'Cabin Boy', and now THIS!"
PlanB, you don't get it. There should be general revulsion from the populace when something is regurgitated and then sold back them in a new wrapper. THAT is why remakes suck. Spielberg and Smith and the production company are absolutely banking on the fact that most people haven't seen Oldboy, and in effect, are trying to horn in on the most compelling elements of that story instead of guiding people to the already fantastic film that exists. I'm not sure how it is that you can't see that obvious reality, but let me spell it out for you: THESE ARE DEMONS SET LOOSE UPON THE EARTH TO LOWER THE STANDARDS – Bill Hicks RIP
RE: YouDon'tGetIt
Well said, by you and Hicks. Will Smith is the new "Madonna-with two-heads sucking satan's cocks"!
Like anyone involved in this flick would even have *heard* of Oldboy without the movie. This gets a Fuck This Factor of 10.
Wait a minute before I jump into the "fuck this remake and learn to read subtitles you retards" wagon… If the manga is not about incest, hammer beating and eating of live octopus… what the hell is it about? I mean, if it's not edgy, is it any good? 'Cause if the original story is as good as the original film, maybe even Will Smith can't fuck this one.
why the heck does he cut out/off his tongue? I was completely lost once this happened.
#31 – "and who's that guy? Is he the guy with the hat from earlier? What's he doing now? And what did he say when I was asking "what's he doing now"?" — Dude, you're gonna fucking love the Smith/Spielberg version.
I'll probably cut out my own tongue (and eyes, and ears, and generally kill myself) when I see this.
Timecrimes, [REC], Let the Right One In, Oldboy…
Face it: bend over and take it for the sake of other Americans who won't/can't read 2 hours worth of subtitles.
And i'm just saying to "I'm just sayin", look be sick all you want! That's what's called hateration! Kick rocks and get over it! He does what he does, he works hard, takes care of his family ,gives back, is loveable and funny as hell! And he and the rest of us couldn't give two sugars honey ice teas how you and all the other haters feel about "Big Willie"! Do you thing Will and cont to shake the haters off! You guys are just mad , further he gets better and better. Like he says, some things work and some don't but what actor hadn't gone thru that?! I get the distinct feeling if his name were Bob or Tom , you guys would't hate Will Smith so much?! THat's called a loser when you hate on someone because they are doing their thing no matter what their color is. Can't wait for Independence Day 2!
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