Save room for live squid, because Oldboy is coming to TV

Park Chan-wook started a revenge revolution with 2003’s Oldboy; that stylish, bloody-as-all-hell thriller featuring a man in a dark suit still gets made today. This month alone sees the release of two Oldboy-inspired action movies, Monkey Man and Boy Kills World. Now, Lionsgate, the finest purveyors in American Oldboy knockoffs, is teaming with director Park for an all-new Oldboy television adventure that presumably ends with a man cutting out his own tongue because he doesn’t want to tell his “girlfriend” the truth about their relationship. Sounds like a blast.

Per Variety, Lionsgate is bringing Oldboy to television in a new series based on Park’s film. Though Oldboy was loosely based on a manga, the new series will focus on Park’s version of things. Both have the same basic premise: A real friggin’ jerk who sucks named Dae-su Oh (played by Choi Min-Sik in the film) finds himself imprisoned in a decaying hotel room for 15 years without explanation. Then, for equally vague reasons, he’s suddenly released from his cage and sets about getting revenge on some bastard who’s presumably responsible. Park will produce the series, but it remains to be seen if he’ll direct it. His latest TV show, The Sympathizer, premiered on HBO last week.

What isn’t clear, though, is whether this will be a remake of Park’s 2003 film or follow the ongoing adventures of Dae-su, beating men to death with a hammer in hallway after hallway. If so, this would be America’s second attempt at capturing Park’s energy. In 2013, Spike Lee, in one of his only non-joint projects, directed a remake starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, and Samuel L. Jackson. Last year, Borlin told Variety that Lee dropped his usual “A Spike Lee joint” catchphrase after the studio recut the film from 140 minutes to 105, comparing the experience to the equally doomed Jonah Hex.

“I thought Spike’s cut was actually way better than the studio’s, but the studio took it away, and I thought they cut it very poorly, and I thought it ended up having the opposite effect,” Brolin said. “That’s what happens when you start cutting to this idea of pandering for an audience and how testing can bite you in the ass. You don’t know what the audience is going to want. Jonah Hex was them taking the movie back and saying, how can we make this the most accessible movie? And they ended up making the least accessible movie.”

So, will Lionsgate end up making the “least accessible” TV show or one where a man eats a live octopus, convinces a random stranger to kill himself, and engages in some very questionable romantic pursuits? We’ll have to wait and see.