Clive Owen among the actors eyed as a replacement.
While he was never officially confirmed, it was expected that Hugh Laurie (‘The Oranges,’ ‘House’) would be signing up to join the cast of MGM’s remake of ‘RoboCop.’ Unfortunately that won’t be case, as Variety’s Jeff Sneider is tweeting that talks between the studio and the actor have “fallen apart.”
Laurie was up for the role of the villainous CEO of Omni Corp, the multinational conglomerate which creates the titular crime fighter for its own gain. Deadline reports that the studio is now talking with a small group of actors to fill the role, including Clive Owen.
With Joel Kinnaman (‘The Killing,’ ‘Safe House’) in the role originated by Peter Weller, the José Padilha-directed remake centres on Alex Murphy, a 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 Murphy’s life and return him to the streets a super-human cyborg law enforcer known as ‘RoboCop.’