Hey Yo, Draven here.
Kim Jee-Woon’s I SAW THE DEVIL was one of my favorite films of the year in 2011. It was a revenge film that turned the genre on its head. It really gave us what we thought we always wanted with a revenge film and took it to the extreme. I couldn’t stop thinking about it after it was over.
The Wrap is now reporting that producers, Adi Shanker and Spencer Silna (THE GREY, DREDD), have acquired the rights to the film with plans to remake it. I know a lot of people are going to blow this off, especially after the giant failure that was Spike Lee’s OLDBOY remake, but that movie didn’t fail because it was a remake of a South Korean revenge film.
There was a ton of dysfunction behind-the-scenes on OLDBOY and the studio never had faith in it and refused to promote or even distribute the film in any meaningful way. Hopefully, if this remake goes through it won’t have that same dysfunction surrounding it. It also seems like it might translate a little better than OLDBOY did (as The Wrap points out, PRISONERS just dealt with some similar issues).
Let me be clear though, I don’t think there is any way it could top the original film but I do think there is a way it could be successful and to just point to the failure of OLDBOY is short-sighted. Let’s just wait and see who they get to write, direct and star before we blow this remake off completely. And, at the very least this will get some people to check out the original film which is currently streaming on Netflix!
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