Warning: this news may shock you. It may alter the paradigm by which you experience your entire existence.
Apparently the director developing the reboot of Robocop, Jose Padihi, wants Michael Fassbender to play Robocop!!!
Take a few minutes to compose yourself, I can wait…
Fassbender has yet to turn in a bad performance, much less be the most interesting presence on screen in every movie he’s done. So why wouldn’t a director want him? The man has only been working with interesting directors to this point (Snyder, Tarantino, Marshall, Soderbergh, Vaughn, Cronenberg, McQueen, Scott, et al.), and one can safely assume he’s on everyone’s wish list when it comes to projects requiring complex leading men who can lend an almost art house credibility to a mainstream film. So color me shocked to hear that yet another director wants to work with the man. Find someone who doesn’t want him for some eventual project and that will be real news.
All sarcasm aside this does speak to the nature of the Robocop movie that Padihi is hoping to make (non-news though it is); you don’t entice a guy like Fassbender to a project unless you think there is something interesting to attract him. Which means Padihi is trying to make a Robocop with some weight to it, or else he’s just engaging in some wishful thinking that will come to nothing. If a Robocop movie is going to happen then one that tries for the same level of social commentary and complexity, while being equally insane, is the right way to go. If Fassbender joins the project it will speak volumes about what they are trying to accomplish here. If he doesn’t join it really means nothing at all, seeing as he’s been keeping a full slate he has a right to be choosey.
What is really meaningful in all of this is the fact that they are actually still wanting to make a Robocop reboot/remake. CHUD hasn’t reported on it since last September when Aronofsky left the project because MGM didn’t have the money. I remember hearing that MGM was interested in Padihi after he made Elite Squad in Brazil, but that was some time ago. Apparently the script is nearly complete and being turned into the higher ups sometime this week. Hopefully once that happens we will get a bit more substantial news like: is this movie actually happening? Will MGM green light Padihi’s script (written by Josh Zetumer)? What will it be rated? Who will star? How MGM is going to afford it? And, finally, when is it going in front of cameras?
Either way you’ll have no shortage of Fassbender in the near future with A Dangerous Method out for awards season, Shame getting picked up by Fox Searchlight, Haywire coming to start out the new year, and Prometheus just under a year away. And if that is not enough the bluray for X-Men: First Class is great.
See all the information on Robocop over at Screen Rant, where they helpfully post the facts pulled from a video interview with Padihi, who had the nerve not to speak English. Since I don’t speak Portuguese I’m taking their word for it that they’ve correctly translated everything.
The remake debate aside, would Robocop be something you were interested in seeing, with or without Fassbender?