Yesterday I ran a story where the question asked was ‘Is Darren Aronofsky leaving the Robocop remake?’ The answer, as supplied by Aint It Cool News and now my own sources is ‘No.’ According to MGM, Darren remains on the picture and is working with David Self on the screenplay.
But among the dust that was raised by my initial article came some interesting insight. After talking to a couple of people in the know, they kept giving me one of those Socratic questions upon which to chew: ‘Will Darren Aronofsky be able to make a hard R, ultraviolent Robocop for 100 million dollars plus?’ If MGM is getting concerned about the budget and the rating it’s hard to blame them – we’re seeing that the box office is happy to take in very dark PG-13 films, but as Warner Bros has learned a more adult-oriented R rating can be poisonous for your tentpole films.
That said, Robocop will happen. I think MGM has too much riding on this to let the film slip away. I think that if Aronofsky can find a budget that works for the studio he’ll be able to do his ultraviolent take on the material. And I think that MGM is smart enough to not try and trot out a PG-13 Robocop.