Sharlto Copley Confirmed As The Villain In Spike Lee's Oldboy, Joins The Cast Of Open Grave

The search for an actor to play a villain has been a tough one. Many great names have been asked to join the production, but each one of them turned it down due to scheduling or other reasons. At one point or another we reported that Christian Bale, Colin Firth and Clive Owen were all offered and then rejected offers. The search, however, is over now that Sharlto Copley has officially signed on.

It was first reported two weeks ago that Copley had been offered the part, but now Deadline says that the role is his. The South African actor will be working alongside Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Olsen as well as director Spike Lee. The movie follows a man named Joe Douchett (Brolin) who is mysteriously kidnapped and held captive for 15 years. One day he is released, given some money and a call phone, and goes on the hunt for the person who destroyed his life. Copley will be playing Adrian Pryce, the billionaire who organizes the whole plot. The script was written by Mark Protosevich.

But that's not the only piece of good news that Copley has received today. The same new report says that the actor has landed a role in Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego’s Open Grave. He will play a man who one day wakes up under a pile of dead bodies and no memory of how he got there. Slowly he begins to experience flashbacks that rebuild what happened in the missing time and discovers that he may be a murderer. Lopez-Gallego last directed the found-footage horror film Apollo 18.

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