It was just a few short months ago that it was reported that Hugh Laurie would be joining the RoboCop remake and taking on the villain role. Yesterday, Variety‘s Jeff Sneider tweeted this message for us all:
MGM RUMOR #1: While he was never officially confirmed, sources telling Variety that HUGH LAURIE has ended talks to play villain in ROBOCOP.
HUGH LAURIE definitely out of ROBOCOP reboot, not that he was ever “in.”
Looks like the folks at the RoboCop camp are going to have to scramble to get a new villain as shooting is expected to start in September.
In the film, the year is 2029 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Their drones are winning American wars around the globe and now they want to bring this technology to the home front. Alex Murphy is a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit. After he is critically injured in the line of duty, OmniCorp utilizes their remarkable science of robotics to save Alex’s life. He returns to the streets of his beloved city with amazing new abilities, but with issues a regular man has never had to face before.
Joel Kinnaman stars in the Jose Padilha film. Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Jackie Earle Haley, Jay Baruchel, Jennifer Ehle and Michael Kenneth Williams co-star in the August 9, 2013 release.
(Photo Credit: Nikki Nelson/WENN.com)
