So I have three casting related stories for you and a couple of around the Internet obscurities that are more interesting than they are newsworthy. Let’s get to it.
Twitch, the website that first reported Spike Lee would be directing the Oldboy remake, is now reporting Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men) is at the top of Mandate’s casting wishlist for the film’s lead role. Choi Min-Sik played the role in Chan-wook Park’s highly-acclaimed South Korean version.
The site also reports both Chan-wook Park’s 2003 original film and the Japanese manga it was adapted from will be used as source material for Lee’s film.
A comparison to Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Infernal Affairs, written by William Monahan, is said to be a good comparison for how the film will be treated. Just like The Departed we can expect “characters and scenarios from the source material as a launching point while [the new film will] also [be] jettisoning several key elements and events from the original film and working significant amounts of entirely new material into the mix.” The site reports “roughly twenty percent of the Protosevich script is entirely new material.” [Twitch]
B.J. Novak (“The Office”) has signed on for a supporting role in Sacha Baron Cohen’s now-fliming The Dictator. You can also find a large batch of set photos including shots of Megan Fox and a protest at the United Nations featuring protestors holding up signs that say”Free Wadiya” over at Dictator the Movie. [The Playlist]
Lasse Hallstrom has set Mikael Persbrandt (In a Better World) to star in his upcoming feature film The Hypnotist based on Lars Kepler’s novel of the same name. The story follows detective Linna (Persbrandt) as he investigates a grisly triple homicide where the only survivor, a young boy, is too traumatized to testify. Linna convinces a famous psychologist, against his better judgment, to hypnotize the boy, setting off a terrifying chain of events. Persbrandt will next be seen in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit films as Beorn, but you absolutely must catch him in Susanne Bier’s Oscar-winning In a Better World (read my review here) which hits DVD and Blu-ray on August 30. [Bloody Disgusting]
Now for the fun stuff, one of these following videos is old the other is new, but both involve animals making “movies” of their own and I found them both to be fascinating as well as entertaining. The first one (via io9) involves a gorilla at the UK’s Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust who was given a video camera and the video relays the results. Out of all of it I actually think the way he just flips the box back to his handlers was my favorite part.
The second video (via Awards Daily) is about three weeks old and features a seagull who stole a man’s video camera in Cannes, France. The guy eventually found it on a nearby castle wall. This one I find simply amazing.
And finally, fake Criterion Collection DVD cases have been created by a fan you doesn’t mind wishful thinking. That, and they’re actually quite cool such as the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows artwork above. Find the rest at the following link. [PotterCriterion]
