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Colin Firth Acknowledges Being 'Approached' for Oldboy

Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King's Speech, A Single Man, Love Actually) acknowledged in an interview with the Moviefone website that he was "approached" to star in Spike Lee's remake of Park Chan-Wook's live-action film Oldboy. However, he stayed mum on whether he agreed to the role or even if he and the producers are in active discussions:

Moviefone: There is a report that you've been approached to star in Spike Lee's Oldboy remake. Is this true?
Firth: They are making a film. And, yeah, I have been approached about it.

Moviefone: Is it confirmed?
Firth: No.

Moviefone: So you're talking?
Firth: I've just… heard about it. [Smiles] You know.

The Twitch film website had reported last week that Firth was offered the villain role of Adrian in the remake. 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.

Last month, a writer for the entertainment trade magazine Variety reported that Mandate Pictures is still filling its female led role for the film since Rooney Mara (The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake) 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.)

Dark Horse Comics publishes the manga in North America.

Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip.

[Via Comic Book Movies]