I'm really loath to be a sour bitch about the news of Park Chan-wook making another movie -- and a movie back here in the U.S. no less, his first since Stoker! (He has made two T.V. series in English since then -- The Little Drummer Girl in 2018 and The Sympathizer in 2024.) But much like the casting of Robert Downey Jr. in The Sympathizer the casting news today is making this news more bitter than sweet for me -- Variety is reporting that he's planning on making a Western called The Brigands of Rattlecreek next (fantastic title) that will star two people I like in Pedro Pascal and Tang Wei, and two people I very very much do not like in Matthew McConaughey and Austin Butler. To be fair McConaughey and Butler have both given performances I've liked in the past -- McConaughey in Magic Mike, Butler in The Bikeriders and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood -- but seeing their names generally fills me more with dread than it does anticipation. I find the hype around Butler particularly inexplicable. (He is terrible in Dune 2. TERRIBLE.) And since The Sympathizer remains the only project of Park's that I have very little desire to revisit thanks to RDJ stinking that thing up, lisping around like a gross caricaiture, the still sore burn of recent bias eats away at me, reading this news. SIGH. I will attempt to be a bigger man, dig up some tatters of optimism from deep, deep within. Here is how they describe the story:
"The Brigands of Rattlecreek is described as 'an iconic tale of vengeance and retribution set in the American West.' A synopsis of the project explains: 'A capstone of the themes Park Chan-wook has plumbed across his entire body of work to date, the film is an emotionally explosive and visually stunning meditation on the consequences of violence, the value of family, the power of memory, and the true cost of life.'"