But it's unclear how much it will have to do with the original manga

Lionsgate Television announced Wednesday that the studio will produce an English-language television adaptation of Park-chan Wook's 2003 thriller Oldboy. The film, one of the most mesmerizing, memorable dark action films of the 2000s, started a new wave of Korean action cinema when it first released. It has since spawned endless copycats and tributes – particularly its gory, bloody hallway hammer fight sequence, which filmmakers still often cite as inspiration for their own confined space fight scenes. A 4K restoration was released in US theaters in 2023 and came in second at the box office in its first week, beaten only by Barbie. Spike Lee remade the film as an English-language thriller in 2013, but it has never before been adapted for television.

Oldboy's story follows a drunken Korean salaryman, Dae-su Oh (Choi Min-sik) who wakes up after a bender to find himself imprisoned in a shabby room in a dilapidated hotel. His captors do not speak to him – his only interaction with them comes in the form of food trays and occasional haircuts and other physical maintenance after he has been drugged. They keep him for 15 years, as his mind disintegrates and he hones his body for war. Then they suddenly release him onto a rooftop, with no explanation. The rest of the film is a combination of mystery and revenge thriller, as he tries to find out why this happened to him, and punish his captors.

The film is loosely based on an eight-volume manga series by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi. The original Japanese story goes into much more depth with the characters, has a more conventional gangster-underground flavor, and takes the plot in a different direction. Lionsgate's announcement does not specify whether the new show will draw on the parts of the manga that Park did not use, and no showrunner or cast has yet been announced. Park Chan-wook and his producing partner Syd Lim will produce the series.