Josh Brolin on OLDBOY Action Scenes and JUSTICE LEAGUE
Josh Brolin has been making the press rounds for his upcoming film Gangster Squad, and one of his next films will be Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy. I'm curious to see this new vision of this insane story. We've heard that it's going to be different from the original film, and that the ending is going to be even more hardcore than the original's. In a recent interview with Collider Brolin talked more about the film, the action scenes that we'll see in it, and reveals that when getting director Chan-wook Park's blessing to make the film he told him not to make the same movie...
With Oldboy, look, it’s Spike Lee, it's myself, the DP Sean Bobbitt, who’s a [frick]ing 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.
He then goes on to describe the awesomeness of main action sequence in the film saying that it's different than the original,
Ours are amazing. 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.
As much as I enjoyed the original film, this movie could actually turn out pretty badass. I've heard nothing but great things about it so far, and it sounds like there's a good chance it will be an entertaining and crazy movie to watch on the big screen. The actor is then asked about Warner Bros. Justice League movie and if it would be something he'd do, and this was his reply...
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.
Of course Brolin also made the film Jonah Hex, which really wasn't very good at all. It was also announced earlier this week that he will be starring in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. So of course he's open to making comic book films. If he was going to be cast in Justice League, what character would you like to see him play?