OLDBOY remake dead
There might be a God after all... Smith/Spielberg and Dreamworks walk out on Oldboy remake.
The Oldboy remake is done. Latino Review report from "a trusted source" that Mandate (Korean studio behind the original film) and Dreamworks were unable to see eye-to-eye during negotiations over the manga's rights and it left Dreamworks into walking out on the project, along with Steven Spielberg and his star/producer Will Smith.
Oldboy survives for now but Hollywood continue with remakes of Let the Right One In and The Orphanage, among others. And without Dreamworks, there is no Hollywood remake. Mark Protosevich had been writing the screenplay under Dreamwork's money I believe (and who knows if he actually penned anything because if he had, it could only be on the presumption they were to secure the rights), so it's not even like another studio could come in and take his screenplay and hatch a pitch to Mandate (unless of course Dreamworks sold them the script). So at the moment it looks like there's not gonna be an Oldboy remake, at least not for many a year. Sanity restored. Birds can restore their morning song. The world is right again.