Josh Brolin talks Oldboy and the possibility of taking a role in Justice League

When it comes to the details on Spike Lee‘s version of OLDBOY, I’ve definitely been interested in reading about what the director has in-store for movie fans and those faithful to the original from Chan-wook Park.

In an interview with Collider, Josh Brolin who is taking on the lead here shared his thoughts on the remake as well as the okay from Park:

“With Oldboy, look, it’s Spike Lee, it’s myself, the DP Sean Bobbitt, who’s a f*cking amazing man and me talking, like I said, to Chan-wook Park and saying, “Do you mind if we do this?” and his only request was just don’t do the same movie and it’s like no we’re not interested in that. Structurally, as a scaffolding, it’s the same movie, but what we do with is very different. It looks very different. Spike, about two and a half weeks into the movie cut together this four minute compilation just for me to look at. Not that I needed it, not that I felt like I’m lost, I don’t know what I’m doing. He just gave it to me and said, “Don’t look at this until you get home.” And I watched this four minute compilation and it looked fantastic. It was a massive, massive inspiration. We were out of the motel room at that point, so I didn’t have to do that anymore. But we spent more time in the motel room. We did eight minute to eleven minute long takes where he would just let me go and do whatever. I’d be sitting there naked in the room and he would say, “You’ve been in the room thirteen years; go.” And I would do eight minutes on that and whatever would come up. Some of it was really stupid and unusable. Some of it was really fun and interesting.”

When asked about a comparison with the fight scenes, which offer up very long takes, Brolin said this:

“We don’t match anything. The only matching is that we do it in one take. That’s the only matching. That’s the only similarity. Well, no, there’s one more similarity, but it’s basically the only similarity within that sequence and I think I can be safe to say that it’s not anything like the original other than it is one take and I’ve never experienced or seen anything like it. And I think what J.J. Perry did as the fight coordinator is something phenomenal. I will say this, I thought there is no way I could possibly pull it off until about a week before we did it after rehearsing it for quite a while.”

There was also an exchange about the outcry from fans who have been rather upset about the material being remade. Brolin agreed with the interviewer, who said that the original was “really good” but “not flawless”. The actor continued to elaborate:

“No, you’re not one of those where it’s- which I don’t understand also, “Why would you remake the film?” Just don’t see it if you don’t like it, if you don’t want to see a remake of the film. Why do another Star Wars? Why do three more? The first three are amazing. Why do the second one when the first one was great? Why do a remake? Who cares?”

Last but not least, the interesting idea of Brolin starring in DC’s JUSTICE LEAGUE came up. He’s taking on SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR, so why not another comic film? I appreciated his response:

“We’ve got other conversations and if that conversation comes up I’ll have a conversation with anybody about anything. There’s nothing that I don’t like. Somebody said recently that I’m not a big-budget guy. Gangster Squad has money, I don’t care if it has money or not. All I want to do is keep switching it up, that’s all I care about. So whether I do a big movie or a smaller movie, there are bigger movies that I’ve turned down just because I didn’t feel like – I said, “Look, I’ll be the first person to see this movie I just don’t want to be in it. I don’t want to spend the next six, eight months doing something that I get to show up and have the biggest trailer and do green screen do that.” Whereas Men in Black I was totally willing to do that because it’s a great character, and it’s a very difficult character.”