Mark Wahlberg has appeared in a handful of remakes throughout his career, but the only ones worth seeing are the two reworked from foreign films ("The Departed;" and I'm counting British classic "The Italian Job" as the other). Hopefully this means good things for the Hollywood remake of Oskar Jonasson's "Reykjavik-Rotterdam," which might star the artist formerly known as Marky Mark, according to Variety. Wahlberg is also attached to produce the new version of the Icelandic thriller along with fellow "Entourage" executive producer Stephen Levinson.
"Reykjavik," one of 60 films in the running for next year's foreign-language Oscar, is about a former alcohol smuggler recruited for one last job. The original has the protagonist as a former crew member of a freighter regularly traveling between Reykjavik, Iceland, and Rotterdam, Netherlands. For the English-language version the locations will be changed of course, but to what? New York and Toronto, maybe?
The remake will be directed by Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur, who produced and stars in the original. Kormakur is no stranger to working with English dialogue or even big Hollywood actors. His 2005 drama "A Little Trip to Heaven" takes place in the American Midwest (though was filmed in Iceland) and stars Forest Whitaker and Julia Stiles. For his most recent work, "Inhale," he actually shot in the U.S. That film features Rosanna Arquette, Diane Kruger and Dermot Mulroney. Meanwhile, Kormakur is also currently producing a Hollywood remake of his hit 2006 thriller "Myrin" (aka "Jar City").
Despite my hope that Wahlberg's remake track record works in this film's favor, my greater desire is that this spotlight on "Reykjavik-Rotterdam" gives an American distributor reason to release the original in the states, at least on DVD. Even if it's selected as one of the five Oscar nominees for Best Foreign-Language film, that honor is unfortunately not always a guarantee of U.S. distribution. But many American moviegoers like to be able to compare remakes to their source film. And there's always the people who prefer to just see the originals.
Do you agree that Mark Wahlberg is good for remakes of foreign films? Do you hope to see the original "Reykjavik-Rotterdam" before the new version is released?
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