Spike Lee Wants Rooney Mara For OLDBOY Remake?

Has Rooney Mara become the girl to star in disturbingly twisted movies that few of her peers would come anywhere close to touching?

Has Rooney Mara become the girl to star in disturbingly twisted movies that few of her peers would come anywhere close to touching? She's already appeared in the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (the more horrific of the 80's horror franchises in concept) and she's about to be seen in David Fincher's version of the bleak Swedish crime thriller The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Now comes word from Twitch that director Spike Lee and Mandate Pictures are eyeing Mara to take the major female role in the Oldboy remake that Josh Brolin leads when filming begins next year. Although it's only rumour at this stage we should remember that Twitch were right on the money with their story that Lee would direct in the first place, they seem to have good sources around this project. Based on a 1990€s manga series from Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya, Oldboy finds Joe (Dae-su Oh in the Korean original) kidnapped on the day of his daughter€™s birth. He is held hostage and imprisoned for nearly two decades (15 years in the original) with no understanding of why. He is suddenly released and informed he has four days to find the reason of his imprisonment, or else his daughter will be killed. Where the story goes from next is rather twisted and mindblowing and almost impossible to imagine in a Hollywood film€ so expect significant changes. Plus we hear Mark Protosevich€™s (I Am Legend) script is more faithful to the manga than the film, which differ in endings and having other changes throughout... including an absolute sucker punch blow that was an invention of original director Chan-wook Park. So just because Mara tops the wishlist can she be secured for this? Well after being put through the Fincher ringer on 'Tattoo' she may decide she wants to take some time off and another exhausting shoot might not be for her with the inevitable The Girl Who Played With Fire likely to star being muted next year. Though I guess there's a little way off before this Oldboy remake shoots. Josh Brolin is now shooting Tales From The Gangster Squad and then Jason Reitman€™s Labor Day next summer. Lee himself is busy with his under-the-radar movie titled Red Hook Summer. So Oldboy may not be a go-project till next September time so a long while for this to play out. No word yet either on whether Christian Bale might play the villain role, but as we say, lots of months yet for this all to play out.
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Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.