Steven Spielberg and Will Smith to work on Oldboy remake

A remake was bound to happen, but I’ll admit I didn’t expect this.  /Film is reporting that Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are in talks to collaborate on a remake of Chan Wook-Park’s Oldboy.  To echo Peter Sciretta’s sentiment, this movie IS going to be remade.  It’s just a matter of who is going to be involved.  Where I differ, however, is that the most talented people possible should be the ones to make it.

Track with me here for a second.  If you’ve seen the movie, you know as well as I do that there is no way that the twist is going to make it to an American sequel.  PETA wouldn’t let the octopus scene happen and since it’s Will Smith, it’s going to get cut to a PG-13 (see Hancock as an example) to maximize box office potential.  With the brutality, darkness and it’s generally jacked up feel being stripped away, this is pretty much going to be a no-win scenario. 

With all of this in mind, I suggest that we get talented people as far away from this as possible.  It’s no secret that I haven’t been a Spielberg fan for the better part of 10 years (with Catch Me If You Can being the notable exception), but I still respect his filmography and don’t want to see him or Smith take the brunt of geek backlash.  Dreamworks needs to get either Brett Ratner or Paul W.S. Anderson to direct Dolph Lundgren in the remake so we can all put this inevitable pile behind us as soon as possible and pretend it never happened.