Is Aronofsky down with OCP?
Yeah, you know he.
Buried in a Hollywood Reporter article about Mary Parent is a stunner of a revelation: among the people who have been in to have meetings about the remake of Robocop is Darren Aronofsky (Russ briefly covered this here). I don’t think this is just a throwaway name, either. I think Aronofsky is serious about this.
Which is amazing. It redefines the entire idea of a Robocop remake; all of a sudden this isn’t just a cheap cash-in on a property that has nostalgia value but possibly an actual movie. This could be the next The Thing or The Fly with a real director on board, and Aronofsky is, 100%, a real director.
For him this would be a killer choice. I’ve read the script for The Wrestler, and it’s good but very little. It’s a movie that will get good notices but will probably not make a big impact (although it would be nice if I was wrong). He has The Fighter also lined up (could this be a trilogy? When will we see The Slapper?), but that may or may not happen, and it’s a prestige picture. Aronofsky’s always been ready to do a mainstream movie – his take on Batman would have been fucking killer and made Nolan’s look like Adam West on ecstasy – and the next year could be the right moment.
Just thinking about Aronofsky set free in a dystopian near future, with Robocop as his protagonist… I’m salivating. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that all of a sudden the Robocop remake goes from a groaner to a potential classic.