The original RoboCop was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Sadly the sequels didn’t hold up to the original, and the television spinoff are better left unseen. When I heard that they were remaking the movie I was annoyed. Ugh. Yet another remake of one of my favorite 80s movies (grumble, The Karate Kid, grumble). But this one is shaping up to be something special.
José Padilha, the director behind the Elite Squad flicks, took over the project from Darren Aronofsky (who is one of the most interesting directors that keeps coming close to doing genre movies – Wolverine, Batman Year One, and now RoboCop). I’m not familiar with Padilha’s work, but his casting choices have been inspired. In the past month, both Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson were announced in roles; Oldman as the scientist that invents RoboCop and Jackson as an over the top television personality/mogul. Now they have stepped up the game even more by casting House MD‘s Hugh Laurie as the villainous CEO of OCP –the company in the original RoboCop that practically owns Detroit. The title role is being played by The Killing‘s Joel Kinnaman, with Abbie Cornish rumored to be portraying his wife.
So far the RoboCop remake is doing something very right with its casting. Hopefully they have worked just as hard on getting the script right and everything else will follow suit. I’m still hesitant, but getting more and more excited for this flick.
I think the reason Aronofsky never seems to be able to deliver on a comic book product is he wants more control over the film and property than is allowed by the studios, He also never seems to respect the source material. He always wants to put his own spin on it and make it into something different. See what he wanted to do with Batman: Year One.
That is very true, but I’d still love to see what he’d do with a comic book/genre film given full control over the material. It’d be something to see.
An awesome RoboCop viral video has been released. Check it out here.